Feature Industrial compliance Treat safety as a must, not an extra
Tom De Fruytier, who is a member of Brady Corporation’s Global Safety & Compliance team explains why compliance should be seen as a positive step in the workplace
e Fruytier is responsible for matching Brady’s products with the needs and demands of thousands of customers in industry worldwide to work safer and more efficiently.
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“What drives all of our research and development and product launches is the goal of making safety and compli- ance simple. If you provide an employee with an easy to use product they are much more likely to use it than some complicated device which takes ages to fit. Maintaining a safe workplace doesn’t require a lot of extra time if there is a proper process in place and easy to use kit. I’m not even talking about the tragic, fatal accidents which hit the headlines. Even small accidents are costly in terms of morale and disruption. From both a human factor, what safety means in terms of lives and injuries, and from a cost factor, in terms of fines, increased insurance and lost production time compliance isn’t an option, it’s an absolute necessity.
“The big challenge in the environ- ment that we work in is to discover what the customer’s business issue is. I’m very lucky to have a top team of sector managers to work with. These
men and women are active in every sector of industry you can think from food processing, through oil, gas and FMCG manufacturing. Every day they are out talking to plant managers, pro- duction line workers and safety offi- cers about the challenges and problems that crop up every day. If you’re in some ivory tower trying to second guess what your customers want, I don’t think you’ll meet with much success. Brady’s products come directly from listening to customers’ needs and wanting to work with them. We’re not interested in the quick sell, we’re in this business to become trusted business advisors for our cus- tomers. It’s a process we call ‘Voice of the Customer’ and we incorporate it into everything we do. For example if someone needs lockout/tagout prod- ucts we ensure we recommend the right device for any particular energy source and also suggest employee training and an efficient implementa- tion programme to ensure the most seamless way to increase safety. “A prime example of this listening process in action is the recently launched ‘Toughstripe’. It’s a very tough vinyl that came from talking to companies who were working in a
‘lean’ environment (e.g. Kaizen, 5S). By listening to our customers we dis- covered that they had other needs as well. Lean requires a lot of flexibility at the production floor to move sup- plies and equipment around. Using paint as floormarking isn’t desirable as it’s too permanent, and regular floor marking tape is often not durable enough against forklift traffic for example. Toughstripe however is ultra resilient and at the same time it’s very easy to remove in case a plant layout needs to be changed quickly. For marking hazardous areas it’s ideal. It’s only a small product but is exactly what our customers need and a really good contribution to making a safety process easier.”
Tom De Fruytier, of Brady Corporation’s Global Safety
& Compliance team
De Fruytier says he has noticed cer- tain global changes in attitudes to safety and compliance.
“I’m quite optimistic actually,” he says, “there does seem to be an acknowledgement of the increased importance of compliance every- where. In large corporations, where the head of safety used to be a manager or part of the operations team, it is now likely that the role is at VP level involving overall strategy and imple- mentation, for me that’s really hearten- ing as it’s putting the issue centre stage, where it ought to be.”
Brady T: 01295 228 288
www.bradyeurope.com Enter 300
Guarding service helps companies comply with new regulations M
otivated by significant changes to the Machinery Directive, Safety Systems Technology has set up a bespoke service to design, manufacture and install machinery guarding, ensuring that machine manufac- turers and users are compliant with the changes that have recently come into force. Given their essential safety role, guards are often
treated casually and continue to be the cause of many injuries and accidents that could have been prevented had appropriate and fit-for-purpose guards been in use. Current safety legislation gives a lot of attention to
guards and as a result a great many individuals and companies are breaking health and safety laws without being aware they are doing so. The new Machinery Safety Directive, 2006/42/EC, which came into force at the end of 2009, introduced a whole range of new requirements for guards, not the least of which is that they must carry CE marking. To carry CE marking a product must comply with all applicable EU standards and there are a great many standards that apply to guards. Just a few examples are EN 953, Safety of Machinery – Guards – General Requirements; EN ISO 13857 – Safety of Machinery –
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Safety distances to prevent hazard zones being reached by upper and lower limbs; and EN 349 – Safety of Machinery – Minimum gaps to avoid crushing of parts of the human body. There are many others, including many “Type C” standards that apply specifically to par- ticular types of machine. “Achieving full standards compliance for a guard, which is necessary if it is to carry the CE marking, is no trivial task. It’s not a task that can be readily tackled with an ad-hoc design and the services of a local engineer- ing company,” says Gary Trewhitt of Safety Systems
Technology. “CE marking, along with the design and manufacture of guards, requires specialist expertise which is why we have launched our guarding service.” This need for expertise is further reinforced when the other changes to guarding requirements brought in by the new Machinery Safety Directive are considered. Section 1.4.1 of the Essential Health and Safety Requirements (ESHRs) requires that guards must pro- tect against the ejection of falling materials and objects. Section 1.4.2.1 has added requirements that for fixed guards, the fixing systems must remain attached to the guards when removed, and also that, where possible, guards must be incapable of remaining in position without their fixings. Considerable expertise will be needed to ensure
guards satisfy all regulatory requirements. Specialist guarding design, assessment and manufacturing ser- vices, as offered by Safety Systems Technology offer a convenient, affordable and dependable solution.
Safety Systems Technology T: 0845 075 0008
www.safetysys.co.uk
Enter 301 SEPTEMBER 2011 Factory Equipment
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