SAFETY Due to some plants running 24-hours-a-day, sometimes maintenance is put on the backburner.
Keeping food processing plants safe Processing plants need to develop strategies that keep their workers safe from the ever-increasing automation of plant. Food & Beverage Industry News gets the lowdown from ABB’s Darcy Simonis.
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n 2014, a large UK food manufacturer had to pay an $1.5 million fine after a serious industrial accident. An engineer was trapped by the machinery while examining a conveyor belt and suffered major injuries and ongoing nerve damage. Accidents such as this are widely reported, but many people are unaware of the number of hazardous areas found in food and beverage processing plants. Darcy Simonis, industry network lead for ABB’s food and beverage segment, said the safety procedures that must be developed in these processing plants. “Across the globe, there are a variety of different regulations for food processing plants. In particular, North America and Europe have strict regulations for safety in these potentially dangerous environments,” she said. “This also applies to the safety of employees in the processing plants and employers who fail to make adequate safety considerations can face large fines. Not only can these authorities enforce these in the case of accidents, they can also be enforced during regular inspections.” In Europe, the Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC requires machinery to be designed and built
so that it can be used safely. In food processing plants, there are many dangerous machines for which plant managers should follow safety regulations, or the plants may face closure or high fines. Machines such as decanters exhibit high centrifugal forces during operation, and it is not unknown for the machine’s g-forces to reach more than 2000 times gravitational force. This is clearly a dangerous environment for employees to work in, however as these machines are essential for production, the key concept is the management of risk. “In the 1970s, the increase in heavy machinery such as the creation of the steel press led to increased safety guards,” said Simonis. “Since then, many safety conscious companies undertake a risk analysis in the initial stages of machine development. In the case of decanters, it is not possible to remove the risk, but it is possible to mitigate the risk to an acceptable level by putting safety guards such as enclosures or emergency stops into place.” The hazardous nature of a food processing plant is especially affected by the need for hygiene, the continuous working of the plant and the high turnover of staff. To comply
26 Food&Beverage Industry News | February 2020 | www.foodmag.com.au
with hygiene regulations, plants need to be constantly washed down, meaning that despite safety guards, equipment needs to be accessible, which adds additional risk. Due to the high demand on food and beverage production facilities, plants often run 24 hours a day and continuous operation means there is little time for maintenance and repairs to be carried out. In the food industry, it is during breakdowns when injuries occur. Workers, faced by high targets and strict deadlines, may attempt to repair equipment themselves or even override safety guards to reach into machines and risk injury in the process. It is therefore vital that, regardless of high production targets, employees are well educated in the company’s safety policies and the equipment`s safety features. Despite overall labour turnover falling in Britain over the last five years, there is a notoriously high turnover of staff in food and beverage processing plants. This presents an additional complication to the hazardous areas. Employers are often reluctant to spend time training staff on safety procedures, but then run the risk of having employees who are not sufficiently up to speed.
“The UK’s food processing industry employs 117,000 migrant workers from the EU, which supplies the sector with the necessary labour. However, language barriers and a high turnover of staff can indirectly create safety hazards,” said Simonis. “It is vital that plant managers communicate safety measures more effectively to reduce the risk to non-English speaking employees – all of which can be done by using visual displays or by placing new staff members alongside more experienced employees.” Wherever you look across the food processing industry, hazardous areas exist. Safety guards need to put in place from the very start of the food chain, such as in the milking process. In milking parlours, exposed platform rollers must be guarded to avoid clothing or employees becoming trapped. Hazards are present throughout the plant, from the handling of the raw material, to production – where industrial ovens can often reach very high temperatures – to the final packaging of the product ready for transportation. Breweries are a particularly strong example of the hazards present in the
