Pacemakers aren’t perfect

Jared Rader — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 09:06:56 -0600

For most products, preliminary hazard analysis is simple when it comes to battery failure — worst-case scenarios are temporary loss of function or data loss. But suppose you are designing a pacemaker and consider the following real scenario.

Test your instructions as thoroughly as your products

Jared Rader — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 11:00:22 -0500

A woman was permanently injured when her arm caught in the awning she used to shade her home deck. She was following the written and graphical instructions provided by the manufacturer, which placed her in an extremely hazardous position that led directly to the accident.

Prosthetics technologies become safer and more reliable

Jared Rader — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 09:06:26 -0500

When accidents result in serious injury, amputations are not uncommon. My columns usually focus on factors that lead to injuries with little mention of an injured person’s recovery.

Inconvenient lockout/ tagout likely gets ignored

Jared Rader — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 09:04:19 -0500

I’ve been discussing the details of Lockout/Tagout programs in this space for the past few months (“Lockout/Tagout: The Devil is in the Details,” March 17, 2011; “Lockout/Tagout: When and How?” April 21, 2011; “Lockout/Tagout Mistakes Lead to Injury, Death,” May 19, 2011). But even when a company has LO/TO programs in place, workers may skip LO/TO procedures that seem too burdensome or inconvenient. Many supervisors compound the problem by recognizing the difficulty and overlooking LO/TO lapses.

"Taped-over" presence sensor contributes to automatic-door injuries

Jared Rader — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 09:02:25 -0500

A woman was injured when automatic doors closed on her as she was entering a big-box store. The immediate and lingering injuries proved these doors operate with appreciable force and that it’s necessary to keep them properly adjusted.

The woman was entering the store through one of two sets of entrance doors. Each set of doors consisted of a pair of outer doors and a pair of inner doors. Each pair operated by swinging in toward the store interior, away from approaching shoppers. The pairs were separated by a short vestibule.

Lockout/Tagout mistakes lead to injury, death

Jared Rader — Thu, 19 May 2011 09:30:42 -0500

Over the last two months (“Lockout/Tagout: The devil is in the details,” March 17, 2011; “Lockout/Tagout: When and how?” April 21, 2011), I’ve discussed details of lockout/tagout procedures that often trip people up.

Unguarded press brake crushes fingers

Jared Rader — Wed, 04 May 2011 10:05:49 -0500

Editor: Jessica Shapiro

A worker was reaching into the operating area of a press brake to clean the die when he depressed the foot pedal that cycled the machine. The ram descended, crushing four of his fingers.

Lockout/Tagout: When and how?

Jared Rader — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 09:30:43 -0500

In last month’s column (“Lockout/Tagout: The Devil is in the Details,” Machine Design, March 17, 2011) discussed some details that regularly trip up companies applying 29 CFR 1910.147, OSHA’s “Control of Hazardous Energy (Lockout/Tagout).” Some of those details come from pret

Too little training and the wrong tools led to dough-machine injury

Jared Rader — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 10:46:00 -0500

Edited by Jessica Shapiro

A bakery worker’s hand was injured in the piston of a dough cutter. The worker was cleaning stray dough from the walls of the machine’s hopper at the end of a batch. To do this, he had to reach over the rim of the hopper with a small scraper.

The Basics of Lockout/Tagout

codyward — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 09:41:35 -0500

Many of the conveyor accidents I discussed in recent Machine Design columns (“Analyzing Conveyor Design for Safety,” Sept. 23, 2010; “When It Come

More articles by Lanny Berke