Machine Guarding Safety Program

The Machine Guarding Safety Program establishes requirements for protecting employees from hazards associated with moving machinery, equipment, and machine parts. Machines can expose employees to points of operation, rotating parts, nip points, pinch points, cutting surfaces, flying particles, sparks, and other hazards capable of causing amputations, crushing injuries, lacerations, entanglement, and other serious injuries. The program emphasizes identifying machine hazards and ensuring appropriate machine guards and safeguarding devices are installed, maintained, and properly used.

The program addresses machine guarding requirements, point-of-operation guarding, rotating and reciprocating parts, belts, pulleys, gears, shafts, sprockets, chains, flywheels, mechanical power-transmission equipment, barrier guards, interlocks, and safeguarding devices. Guards must prevent employees from contacting hazardous machine parts without creating additional hazards or interfering unnecessarily with safe operation. Employees must inspect guards and safety devices before use and must never remove, bypass, defeat, or modify required safeguards while equipment is operating. Machines with missing, damaged, or ineffective guards must be removed from service until corrected. The program also addresses lockout/tagout during servicing and maintenance, employee responsibilities, inspections, training, and safe work practices to help prevent machine-related injuries and amputations.