MEX Engineering Group were asked to undertake numerous safety upgrade works for clients. This included Pedestrian Segregation, Mechanical guarding, and Electrical Safety.
Each upgrade was treated as a stand-alone project and required a Risk Assessment to be conducted. These assessments were conducted by CMSE (Certified Machine Safety Expert) certified people to meet AS/NZS 4024 Safety of machinery. The assessments looked at all the potential hazards (potential cause of injury). The hazards were then assessed for the potential risk (potential level of injury) and a control solution provided (potential to reduce both the hazard and risk).
For pedestrian segregation this included removing existing gates where practicable, adding new fencing to prevent people accessing an area and creating designated pathways around the site.
For mechanical guarding, installation of guarding that prevented partial to full body access to a hazard with approved fencing with gaps <180mm to prevent full body access under or around the fence and high enough to prevent both people and product or equipment coming into contact.
Electrical safety in these jobs is much harder to do as all assessments are conducted as if there are no existing barriers. This is easy with a brand-new machine, but existing machines have had some protection already added. The existing protection must be assessed and update protective system installed.
These include replacing existing padlocked doors with a trapped key system which only allows access when the line is in a safe state. The use of approved signal devices, like Emergency Stop buttons and lanyards, Light curtains, limit switches, proximity switches, alarms, horns, relays, and contactors.
These are all controlled by a safety rated PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) which are designed to stop operation if a fault is detected in any of the approved signal devices.
With electrical safety any work that is done is validated by a CMSE person that has not been involved in the design or installation to ensure compliance with the Standards.
The client is then provided with all the safety validation paperwork as well as both paper and electronic copies of all drawings.
