2 separate accidents on the same machine

A cable manufacturer has been fined after two employees were injured in two separate incidents on the same machine at its factory in Leigh.
The circumstances were:

• The machine is used to mould rubber as part of the production of ignition cables for the automotive industry.
• It was poorly maintained and safety features were missing or inadequate.
• Workers had not received suitable training and a safe system of work was not in place.
• It was possible for employees to stand on the concrete ledge under the machine, putting them in a position where they were at risk of being trapped by the rollers.
• The rollers rotate three quarters of the way around after the emergency stop is pressed
• The first incident occurred when a worker  was cleaning the blade on the  machine. He accidentally leant on the operating pedal which caused his finger to become trapped.
• The second incident occurred less than a month later when a worker  was cleaning the rollers on the machine when his left arm became trapped.
• He hit the stop bar but the machine took several seconds to stop, dragging his arm into the rollers and raising his entire body off the floor. It took the emergency services almost an hour to release him and he was kept in hospital for nearly a month.
• He lost almost all of the use of his left arm, and narrowly avoided having to have it amputated.

TCB Arrow Ltd, was  fined  £28,984 (inc. costs) at the court hearing on 26th July 2013.

The HSE Inspector said:

"Two employees were injured within a month of each other because TCB Arrow's health and safety procedures fell way below the minimum legal standards. One of the men will be affected by his injuries for the rest of his life after losing almost all of the use of his left arm. His injuries could have been avoided if the company had taken action to improve safety following the first incident. Our investigation found TCB last carried out a generic risk assessment for the factory in 2003, and there had never been a specific assessment of the machine - despite the risks of workers being injured by rollers being well known in the manufacturing industry. If the company had put more thought into the health and safety of its employees then the injuries both men suffered could have been avoided."

ISO 14001 the most popular ISO standard for certification

ISO 14001 is the standard which showed the greatest number of certifications. This is true both worldwide and in the UK.  For 2011, which is the latest year for which data is available, there were 15,230 ISO 14001 certifications in the UK, representing a growth of over 500% over a 10 year period.

SSS have provided ISO 14001 systems for over 40 companies and we make it pain free.
Click on this link to see how simple it can be and how it can benefit your company.

Mixing FSC and PEFC papers

Given the antagonism between these two approaches, it is better to avoid mixing them in a single product. However, there is nothing in either standard which says you can't mix them so that you have, say, an FSC cover and PEFC text.

This blog tells you the rules to follow.

Note that there is nothing in either standard to prevent this. However, were you to have predominantly FSC paper and make an FSC claim, then FSC put the onus on you to prove that the non-FSC paper meets a list of requirements; you cannot take the paper supplier's word for it. This tends to make it not worth doing.

Which claim to use?
You cannot claim that the product meets both standards. This is because both standards require a minimum of 70% content. Therefore, use the standard for the predominant content.  

Chosing paper to achieve the minimum final content
As the minimum is 70%, you cannot use 70% paper for the bulk of the product and then dilute it with paper from the other standard as the result would be below 70%, even if the difference is minor, say 1%. Therefore, you must specify paper which is sufficiently higher than 70%, eg choose 80%, 100% or credit.  Note that you cannot go for a 50/50 mix as this would not meet the 70% requirement.

Positioning the logo.
As you can only make one claim, you can only use one logo. This logo must be printed on the paper to which it applies. For example, if you are making a PEFC claim because the text paper is PEFC, then the logo must be on the text paper; it must not be on the cover.

Calculating the claim

Example

128 pp text 80 gsm 100% PEFC

4pp cover 200 gsm FSC 100%

4pp insert 80 gsm FSC 100%

Calculate as follows:

Text content = 128 x 801 = 10240 PEFC Cover content = 4 x 200 = 800 FSC Insert content = 4 x 80 = 320 FSC Total content = 10240 + 800 + 320 = 11360 PEFC content = 10240 x 100% 11360 = 90%
1Strictly, this should be multiplied by the area of the page to calculate the weight, but you get the same end result either way.

A word about inserts
Inserts are not normally regarded as being an inherent part of the product. Therefore, you can normally ignore them. If you think about it, it would be a nightmare with the normal situation where inserts are supplied by other printers over which you have no control.

Further support
Strategic Safety Systems provide systems and support for companies who require FSC and/or PEFC certification. To date, we have helped over 40 companies with this.

See http://www.strategicsafety.co.uk/EnvironmentalServices.html

What you should have in your health and safety system

Most of the systems I see fall into 2 categories:

1. Lacking in any useful information
2. Comprising too much information, masking that which is really required.

So, what should you have to be both useful and meet legal requirements?
You need the following:

1. Risk assessments of your operations
2. Assessments of substances hazardous to health
3. Fire risk assessment
4. Specific risk assessments, such as manual handling or noise
5. Systems of work, including items such as an evacuation procedure

1. Risk assessments
There is a legal requirement to assess and record risks, and to put into place control measures. Don't get carried away. What I recommend is: 

• Identify the hazard, what might happen as a result of this and the likelihood of it occurring.
• Then define how it is controlled and, where appropriate, how you ensure that you keep in control. For example, if you have interlocked guards, then you need to periodically check that the interlocks work.
• If there is no risk control or it is inadequate, then define the action to correct this.
• If the risk cannot be controlled, define how you are going to minimise it. For example, forklift trucks are always a risk and the minimisation measures may be to restrict driving to trained and authorised drivers and to keep the trucks maintained.  

When identifying what to assess, look at the processes. A machine when it is running poses different risks to when you are setting it up.  And don't forget non-standard operations; you probably can't second guess what these will be, but you need a system to prompt a consideration of identifying risks before you carry out a particular operation.

See How to Carry out a Risk Assessment

2. CoSHH assessments
These are NOT a collection of datasheets. You need to look at each substance and decide if it poses a risk in the quantity and manner in which you are using it.  If it does then list:

• Who is exposed to it, for how long and doing what
• What the risks are
• How you are to control the risks

By far the best control method is to substitute high-risk substances with lower risk ones. At SSS, we have a traffic light colour coding system and we try to promote movement away from "red" substances.

When you have done this, you need to have a summary available at the point of use; its is pointless having perfect assessments sitting on a shelf if nobody knows about them.

See How to Carry out a CoSHH Assessment

3. Fire risk assessment
This should comprise:

• The risk of fire and how you control that risk
• Fire containment and fire fighting
• Fire escape ability, adequacy of escape routes and how you account for people
• Fire management system, ie who checks the alarm system, etc.
• Actions arising

Don't forget that many fires occur from events outside the direct control of the companies affected, so you need to look at your neighbours and also take measures to ensure you minimise the outcome of vandalism.

4. Other assessments
With most workplaces, manual handling assessments are necessary. There are several ways of doing these and the HSE's MAC system is worth following. With noise, you may need specialist help (such as that available from Strategic Safety Systems.) 

5. Systems of work
Systems of work are always the final control method for a risk, but may be necessary. Follow these guidelines:

• Have them short and sweet.
• Write them as instructions and avoid the "should" word
• Use pictures where possible
• Have them available at the point where the operations they cover are carried out.

This may seem a bit daunting, but what you end up with short be simple and workable. If you still find it daunting, Strategic Safety Systems can do all the above for you and, for typical companies, this can be done in a couple of days.

Contact us.

Not a good idea to write a risk assessment after the task has been carried out

Hot-oil burns occurred whilst jet washing a large oil storage tank at PAS (Grantham) Ltd., who manufacture frozen potato products.

The circumstances were:

• The company had failed to carry out a risk assessment for the cleaning operation, and instead decided to do the work first and write it retrospectively.
• Harvey Hopwood (actually the health and safety manager) climbed between the guard rails on the gantry at the top of the tank to check how the work was progressing. 
• As he did so he knocked a pipe connected to a pressure gauge, which came off and released 160°C oil over his upper body.

PAS (Grantham) Ltd, was fined £17,000 (inc. costs).

The HSE inspector said:
"The whole point of a risk assessment is to ensure the risks associated with a particular task are considered and measures put in place to mitigate against them in order to keep workers safe. To carry out the work first and then write the assessment afterwards is foolhardy to say the least. Mr Hopwood was extremely fortunate not to be more seriously injured. If it hadn’t been for the incredibly quick actions of colleagues who dragged him to an emergency shower this incident may have had a very different outcome."

Man entangled in unguarded drill

A Shropshire steel engineering company has been fined after a worker got the sleeve of his overalls caught in an unguarded drill bit, causing serious neck and arm injuries.
The circumstances were:

• The employee from Shropshire was working with a twin pillar drill.
• CRF (UK) Ltd had not provided any guards to prevent access to the rotating spindles and no formal systems of work were in place. 
• It was left to operator experience and discretion how work should be set up and performed and there were no formal systems of supervision or trainin
• While drilling holes into a metal box section, the sleeve on his overalls became entangled in the unguarded running drill spindle.
• He was pulled into the rotating spindle and as it continued to run, his arm and upper body were dragged into the machining area resulting in him being pinned to the machine bed. 
• The man suffered three fractures in his neck and serious cuts and burns on his right forearm. 

CRF (UK) Ltd was fined  £20,871 (inc. costs) 

The HSE inspector said:

"The risk of contact with rotating drills is a recognised hazard in the engineering industry and is supported by well-documented accident statistics. Incidents involving entanglement on rotating drills are easily avoided if manufacturers like CRF (UK) Ltd follow their risk assessments and provide guarding. The custom and practice of the company was to rely on experience rather than on the need for guarding with the addition of, supervision and further instruction and training, as necessary. These failings had existed for a considerable amount of time until the practise of using unguarded machines became normal working practice for the employees. The result was that this was an accident waiting to happen and the employee suffered serious injuries. This accident could have been prevented by the simple measure of providing guarding to prevent access to the rotating parts. Employers who neglect their duty to protect workers will continue to be held to account where they fail to do so."

Company fined £175,000 after man was crushed by falling machinery.

Special Metals Wiggin Ltd. of Hereford has been fined after an employee suffered life-threatening injuries when he was crushed and burned by falling machinery.
The circumstances were:

• The accident occurred on a casting machine, of which there were 33 in the factory
• The system of work for removing ingot moulds from the casting machine was unsafe 
• It involved using overhead cranes to pull the moulds free, which damaged the bolts and their fixing points. 
• This, coupled with the company’s failure to have a proper maintenance programme in place, led to the mechanical failure of the machine.
• Stephen Bond-Lewis was removing waste material from the casting machine when part of it became detached, fell forward and pinned him against a nearby storage bin.
• The falling machinery weighed 964 kilogrammes and had a temperature of between 100 and 250°C
• Mr Bond-Lewis suffered severe burns to 25 per cent of his body, namely his abdomen, chest and left arm, half of which were full thickness burns. He required skin grafts, while his crush injuries meant he also had to have part of his bowel removed. He had to go into intensive care and was on life support for 18 hours.
• A second employee severed the tip of the ring finger on his left hand in the incident, on 8 May 2009, while trying to free him
• All of the 33 machines had the same fault.

Special Metals Wiggin Ltd., was fined £175,000 (inc. costs) on 22nd July 2013.

The HSE inspector said:

"The company failed to make sure there were suitable safe systems in place for removing moulds from its casting machines. Yanking moulds free with the crane caused damage to bolts and their fixings and directly resulted in the collapse of the machine. The fixing bolts on a large number of casting machines were in poor repair, but this had not been spotted or put right because routine maintenance checks were not being carried out. We also found that the operators responsible for maintaining the machines had not received training and instructions in the replacement of damaged bolts. This was an extremely serious incident and Mr Bond-Lewis is fortunate to be alive today. His injuries were life-changing and he has suffered physically and emotionally. He knows he will never be able to work as a foundryman again – a job that he loved."