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MACHINE SAFETY TRAINING Does this happen? The first test that is often applied is cost, and yet when an incident happens, it is the least likely to be accepted in a court as reason for not doing more. Why aren’t good, safe design engineering principles being applied as a matter of course then, I hear you ask? That is THE question! Although, as we have seen, the law is demanding safe engineering risk controls, nobody is receiving training in the application of safe engineering design principles in trade and tertiary technical courses in Australia. A large disconnect exists between the education being delivered and the legal obligations of the people in charge of plant and machinery safety. The management personnel of enterprises may well assume that they are hiring technical people with the requisite competence to carry out the risk controls, however unless these people have been exposed to safe design principles in the workplace already (typically after an incident has already occurred) it cannot be assumed that the engineers, electricians and other trades people carrying out designs, design modifications, machine additions and adjustments will understand the risk implications of what they are doing and how to minimise them by design. Rather, it can usually be assumed that they do NOT understand the risk implications what they are doing, and it is generally not their fault since they did not receive the training during their undergraduate or apprenticeship years. Why aren’t safe new machines being delivered to this country? Isn’t somebody watching? Australian law cannot reach the machine designer and/or manufacturer outside our shores, therefore the legal onus is on the importer and downstream suppliers to control the risks so far as is reasonably practicable. Many of the importers and suppliers also suffer from the same lack of training in the requirements of safe design standards and legislative compliance, so it cannot be assumed that they will be fixing the potential problems on the machines they are bringing into the country. Is anyone checking that they are doing this? In short, no, unless their customer is sufficiently savvy to demand compliance with the relevant machine safety standards and laws. However, as we have discussed, this knowledge cannot be assumed, so compliance is often not checked and sadly many machines end up in use which are far from safe and absolutely not compliant with the relevant standards and laws. Therefore, it is imperative that companies take steps to train their own staff in the essential requirements of machine safety. This means firstly understanding their legal obligations for risk control and secondly how to fulfil them by safe engineering controls. Although not well known as we have seen, the principles of safe design have been well established for many years, and two key standards are in place to guide duty holders to safe designs commensurate with the level of risk. AS 4024.1-2006 Safety of Machinery, which consists of 26 globally applied standards is the most fundamental set which all duty holders need to have be familiar with. AS 61508 and its machine sector version AS 62061 are also important and provide detailed guidance in reducing the probability of dangerous failures of control system designs. Even more fundamentally, companies need to train their staff in the much misunderstood process of risk assessment, and how this must lead to safe designs, well ahead of safe procedures and safe systems of work (administrative controls dependant on human behaviour as we have discussed). Will safe designs lead to lower productivity? This is a common misconception, since many safety solutions have been applied in the past as a bandaid without any thought for the effect on productivity. If productivity is not considered front and centre in the safety solution, then a poor solution may result which can lead to attempts to bypass the safety for productivity reasons, often placing people at a higher risk than if the solution were not installed in the first place. It has been the author’s experience over more than 12 years of considering safety designs, that a well designed safety control system will not only not affect productivity, but can often enhance it by removing cumbersome procedures such as lock out, tag out, etc. Machine safety training, well applied, will cover all of the above issues, providing the duty holders with the tools to provide compliant, productive risk controls that minimise dependence on human behaviour and lead to safer, more productive work places. Surely, this must be one our highest priorities in 21st century Australia. Frank Schrever, Managing Director of Machine Safety by Design Pty Ltd, has a Bachelor of Applied Science (Hons Metallurgy) from the University of Melbourne, plus a Certificate IV in Training and Assessment and has over 32 years’ experience in the instrumentation and automation markets. After graduating and making turbine blades and body parts in the United Kingdom he moved into sales, marketing and management in the scientific instrument industry. Landing his first CEO role at age 35, he joined Spectra- Physics, a United States- based Fortune 500 laser products manufacturer. After eight years he took on the role of establishing the Australian subsidiary of Pilz GmbH, a German-based safe automation products manufacturer where he remained as CEO for 12 years. Last year he decided it was time to smell more roses and left his subsidiary CEO position to start a self-employed OH&S consultancy, providing much needed training and consulting services to the machine industry. He is an active member of the IICA, SIA and long term standards committee member for the key machine safety standard AS 4024. AUSTRALASIAN MINE SAFETY JOURNAL 57