Machinery Risk Assessment for Workshops

Cutting and forming machines are where workshop amputations happen. Every one of them has a point where a hand can be drawn in, crushed or cut, and most of them also expose the operator to noise, fume, metal dust or vibration for the whole shift. A general "workshop safety checklist" does not deal with any of that. A machinery risk assessment goes machine by machine and asks what stands between the operator and the dangerous part.

This guide covers the machines found in a typical steel fabrication, sheet-metal or engineering workshop. It follows the model Code of Practice Managing risks of plant in the workplace.

• Guillotines. Contact with the blade and hold-downs from the front, and from the rear where offcuts are cleared. Rear access is the one most often left open.
• Press brakes. Crushing between punch and die. Close-proximity work makes fixed guarding impractical, so light curtains, laser-based protection and two-hand controls carry the load – and they have to be set up and tested for each tool change.
• Plate rolls and roll formers. Drawing-in at the in-running nip, with nowhere for the hand to go. Emergency trip wires or bars that the operator can reach with any part of the body are the key control.
• Turret and CNC punches. Contact with the ram and the moving table; ejected slugs; noise.
• Decoilers and cut-to-length lines. Stored energy in the coil, entanglement at straightener rolls, and the cut-off shear.
• Pedestal and magnetic drills. Entanglement in the rotating chuck and bit. Gloves make this worse, not better.
• Cut-off saws and bandsaws. Blade contact, kickback and unsecured workpieces.
• Bench and hand grinders. Wheel burst, kickback, sparks igniting combustibles, and eye injury.
• Plasma and oxy-fuel cutting. Fume and gases, UV radiation, burns, fire, and gas cylinder hazards.

Most serious machinery injuries do not happen in normal production. They happen while someone is clearing a jam, changing tooling, cleaning or repairing – with the guard off and the machine assumed to be dead.

For every machine the assessment should confirm:

• A lockable isolator for each energy source – electrical, hydraulic, pneumatic – within reach of the machine.
• Personal locks and tags, one per person, with each person holding their own key. A single "maintenance lock" shared by the crew is not isolation.
• A way to release stored energy: bleed hydraulic and pneumatic pressure, block raised rams and tables, let flywheels run down, restrain coil.
• A test for dead – attempting a start – before hands go in.
• A rule that interlocks are never used as the isolation. An interlock stops production movement; it is not designed to protect someone inside the machine.
• Contractors and service technicians working to the same system as your own staff.

Machine assessments tend to stop at the guard. The occupational hygiene hazards do their harm over years, and they are just as much a part of the duty:

• Noise. Guillotines, punches and grinders routinely exceed the exposure standard of 85 dB(A) averaged over eight hours. Hearing protection is the last control, not the first – look at damping, enclosures, quieter tooling and separating noisy processes.
• Fume and gases. Plasma and oxy-fuel cutting of galvanised and stainless steel generates zinc oxide, hexavalent chromium, nickel and ozone. General ventilation – an open roller door – is not an adequate control for a fume that causes cancer. It needs capture at the source.
• Metal dust from grinding and deburring.
• Hand-arm vibration from grinders and other hand-held power tools.
• Hazardous manual tasks – handling sheet, plate and strakes at the machine.

Where exposure is uncertain, it has to be measured by a competent person such as an occupational hygienist.

Physical controls count for more than rules and personal protective equipment. A sound machinery assessment asks about them in order:

1. Elimination or substitution – can the task be done another way, or on a safer machine?
2. Engineering – fixed and interlocked guards, presence-sensing devices, two-hand controls, emergency stops and trip devices, lockable isolators, local exhaust ventilation.
3. Administrative – safe operating procedures, training and competency assessment, pre-start checks, maintenance schedules.
4. Personal protective equipment – eye, hearing, hand and respiratory protection.
5. Monitoring and emergency arrangements – noise and air monitoring, health monitoring, first aid and rescue.

A machine whose only controls are a procedure and a pair of safety glasses should never come out as low risk.

Hazard: crushing between punch and die. Inherent risk 4C – red: a finger or hand amputation is a permanent injury, and close work at the tooling makes contact possible on every stroke.

On the walkthrough the workshop finds: a laser-based guarding system fitted but muted for small parts "because it slows the job"; two-hand control available but not used when two operators handle long sheet; rear of the machine open; operators trained on the job with no record.

The controls that count most – the presence-sensing system and rear guarding – are not effective, so the residual risk stays 4C – red. The action plan, in priority order:

1. Restore and lock the muting settings on the laser guarding; supervisor sign-off for any change.
2. Fixed or interlocked guarding to the rear and sides.
3. A two-operator procedure with a separate control station for each person.
4. Documented competency assessment for each operator.

Actions 1 and 2 change the result. Actions 3 and 4 support them, and would not be enough on their own.

We have built this assessment already. Our Cutting and Forming risk assessment covers eleven machine activities and 82 hazards, each with its consequence and its starting risk rated by a Certified Industrial Hygienist. You untick the machines you do not have, walk the workshop with a supervisor and an operator, and answer Yes, No or N/A for each of 361 controls. The calculator works out the residual risk of every hazard, builds a prioritised action plan, and produces a finished Word report to print and sign.

It was written for a bolted steel tank workshop and currently carries the New South Wales legal references, but the machines are the same in any fabrication or sheet-metal shop.