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employees working on potentially unsafe machinery on clients premises
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Posted By Eric PD
Any ideas anyone?
We repair various items of engineering machinery such as band saws, lathes,pedestal drills etc. The work involves going to clients workshops and carrying out repairs in situ. Very often our engineer are required to carry out repairs on equipment that is incorrectly or insufficiently guarded. If we tell the client that we are not going to repair the machinery until the guards have been repaired or replaced they will tell us to whistle and get someone who will.
What would be a reasonable approach to this do you think? Bear in mind that we cannot always isolate the machinery as soemtimes power is needed to carry out the repairs. Any ideas?
Our engineers are experienced and competent to do what they do but I am conscious that is hey get injured, then the company is negiligent as we were aware of the dangerous nature of the customers machines.
eric
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Posted By Raymond Rapp
Eric
Legally the situation is quite clear. However, that is not the kernel of your posting. Clients do have a shared responsibility to ensure the safety of contractors etc. Therefore should one of your maintenance chaps get injured both you as the employer and the Client wold be liable. Hence I suggest a polite reminder to your Clients as an absolute minimum.
Regards
Ray
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Posted By lawrence baldwin
Eric
How practical is it to turn what could be a compromise into a business venture, viz-a-viz, having presumably, costed the repair/maintenance, include repair/replacement of guard or device so that you leave the machine in an acceptable condition. If it is an open contract on a service agreement, then how about including upgrading with commercially available guards as part of the contract. (we have just fitted an interlocking chuck guard to a very old but reliable lathe with a guard taken from a commercial brochure, amazing how the operators think it is a vast improvement but originally couldn't see the point or didn't like change.)
If that is not an option then how about your repair engineers having with them temporary guards that can be fitted for their protection when doing the work and leaving on the receipt, outstanding works necessary to bring the equipment up to acceptable standards that may be outwith this contract of which you may get tasked with the upgrade.
These two choices may be too simplistic but gets away from liability and who should be doing what issues that doesnt necessarily help you in business.
Lawrence
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Posted By Ken Dickson
Eric,
Having been involved in this type of work (to a very limited degree) in the past, I normally found that repair works involve delving inside a machine, behind the guards intended to protect those operating the machine. That is the key point here. The guards are not (generally) intended to protect those repairing or servicing the machine, they are intended to provide for protection during normal operation. For those required who service and repair the machinery a much higher level of competence is required, as you have already commented on.
However it would be appropriate for your engineers to comment on the service report that the guarding does not meet the requirements of PD5304 and should be improved.
Ken
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