Analysis and prevention of serious and fatal accidents related to moving parts of machinery

Machines contain hazards of different nature and exposure to those hazards can result in injuries or deaths. Safety of machinery considers the ability of a machine to perform its intended function during its life cycle where risk has been adequately reduced. The principles of machine safety, risk assessment and risk reduction are covered in international standards, national standards, regulations and other literature. Moving parts of machinery still cause many serious injuries and fatalities. This paper aims at analyzing serious injuries and fatalities related to moving parts of machinery in order to understand the various reasons causing such accidents. As such, 106 accident reports related to moving parts of machinery from the province of Quebec in Canada have been analyzed. The main causes are easy access to moving parts of machinery, lack of safeguarding, absence of lockout procedures, inexperience of workers, bypassing safeguards, lack of risk assessment, lack of supervision, poor machinery design, unsafe working methods, no clear instructions to workers on how to intervene safely on machinery as well as modifications to machinery and to control systems. Prevention strategies are also proposed based on the findings and on the literature.