Nuts and bolts of machine safety

For machine safety – let’s see the hands for everyone who’s familiar with current “nuts and bolts” for compliance! Ah, does the word current cause so few hands to be held high?

By J.B. Titus March 29, 2011

For machine safety – let’s see the hands for everyone who’s familiar with current “nuts & bolts” for compliance!

     Ah, does the word current cause so few hands to be held high? We’ll, don’t be intimidated by these results. Old habits and the notion that “this works” are hard to break. It’s called, change! 

     It’s not that someone’s moved the cheese. Simply, there are more kinds of cheese on the table. If “this works” meets all the requirements for your compliance and business goals then by all means you’ve probably got the necessary nuts and bolts for your business. However, would your top management answer this question the same way? Are the “nuts & bolts” of machine safety in your organization a shared value from the CEO to the machine operator? As an operator, is it OK for you to shut the machine down because of a critical safe guard fault?

     In my opinion, for the nuts & bolts of machine safety to be an organizational shared value then there can’t be any communication barriers from top to bottom OR bottom to top!

     Machine safety industry experts say that your safety culture needs to be an enabler of a shared value approach in order to nurture continuous improvement toward the current “nuts & bolts” of machine safety. (I had to put all of that into one sentence.) That’s a mouth full but that is today’s challenge and opportunity in manufacturing. There have been truck loads of new developments in the US since 2002 with changes in industry safety standards and new solutions (technology) for machine guarding applications. Educational opportunities abound from web based training, local seminars, in house seminars, technical hands on seminars for technicians, executive overview seminars for top management,…..and more. Yes, top management also needs training because they set policy and strategy.

     Staying current is a top to bottom obligation in order to attain a shared value – in my opinion.

What’s yours?

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Contact: www.jbtitus.com for “Solutions for Machine Safety”.