Reducing Risk on Machinery: A Field Evaluation Pilot Study of Risk Assessment

Abstract

A pilot evaluation of the ANSI B11-TR3 Machinery Risk Assessment/Risk Reduction (RA/RR) Guideline was conducted. The TR3 guideline was introduced into five companies on one machinery system in each company with a second machine system serving as a control. A pre-post investigation was performed with safety conditions measured pre and post in both treatment and control and with risk reduction score measured only in the treatment machine system. NIOSH provided a commercially available risk assessment software to facilitate the process. Evaluation measures included avoided injuries, reduced exposure to machinery hazards, pretest and posttest knowledge demonstration, assessment of group processes following training, correct implementation of the guidelines, and degree to which risk reduction recommendations were implemented. The qualitative results of this pilot effort appear to be the best indicators for the way ahead in industrial machine risk assessment. All companies indicated that they derived value in participating in this study and in conducting risk assessments. Quantitative study results suggest that: (1) as measured by the knowledge of the participants before and after the TR3 training, the guidelines can be effective at enhancing employee knowledge of safe machine operations and (2) although the injury reduction trends appear successful, the small sample size in the study size should be considered in interpreting these early results.

The Machinery Safety Management - Selected Issues

“…This applies to hazards at the level of: mechanical, electrical, thermal, noise hazard or the properties of processed materials. If there is a risk that cannot be eliminated at this level, the manufacturer applies additional protective measures such as covers and protective devices (Etherton, 2008;Mössner, 2012). The above activities never reduce the risk to zero, there is always a residual risk, therefore manufacturers is obliged to inform and warn in the operating instructions (through appropriate markings and pictograms).…”

“…The analysis and risk assessment is the most important element of the entire process of ensuring machine safety (Hietikko et al, 2011;Etherton, 2008). The risk analysis is carried out by inspecting the machine, focusing on: detection of existing threats and calculation of the HRN index for them, checking compliance with the directives, current standards and regulations, analysis of electrical documentation, safety instructions.…”

Safety of machinery in hospitals: An exploratory study in the province of Quebec, Canada

“…Machine-related accidents would thus be responsible for one third of the deaths at work in the United State (Etherton et al, 2008). More recently, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 717 deaths associated with machinery in 2013 (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014).…”

Experimental Analysis of 31 Risk Estimation Tools Applied to Safety of Machinery

“…He concluded that some uncertainty was inherent in risk estimation, but industry-specific guidelines could help improve this process. Etherton, Main, Cloutier, et al conducted a field evaluation of the risk assessment process [10] proposed in the technical report ANSI B11.TR3:2000 [11]. However, their study focused on the benefits of the entire risk assessment process and not on risk estimation itself.…”