B6. Machine Safeguarding

Code 8.0

Production and other machinery shall be evaluated for safety hazards. Physical guards, interlocks, and barriers shall be provided and properly maintained where machinery presents an injury hazard to workers.

Elements to Demonstrate Compliance to RBA Code

1. Policy

Ensure company's health and safety policy includes machine safeguarding elements including:

• a. All required permits, licenses and testing reports for machinery are in place and a process is implemented to ensure permits and licenses are always up to date.
• b. An adequate and effective machine-safeguarding program is implemented, and workers operate machinery safely.

2. Procedures & Practices

Procedures & Practices are in place such that:

• a. The facility conducts a job safety analysis (task hazard analysis) to identify job-specific hazards. Corrective action is taken for all identified hazards.
• b. Supplier conducts regular safety inspections of machinery and machine safeguards. Identified problems are corrected immediately or the machine is shut down until repairs can be made.
• c. Machinery with non-functioning safeguards is not operated until safeguards are restored to proper operating condition.
• d. Supplier has a program or process for providing and maintaining machinery safeguards for all dangerous equipment to safeguard operators from injury.
• e. Adequate training is provided to ensure safe use of equipment.
• f. The use of machine safeguards by workers is required and verified.
• g. The facility performs scheduled preventive maintenance of machinery and machine safeguards.
• h. The facility conducts a pre-purchase/pre-installation hazard review of all machinery and appropriate safeguarding is installed as needed to control the identified hazards.

3. Controls & Monitoring

Controls & Monitoring should include:

• a. An appropriate method is used to ensure that safeguards are installed as needed to control the identified hazards and follows the hierarchy of controls in a documented gated process, demonstrating that each hierarchy level has been fully evaluated and reasons why it could not address the risk fully before proceeding to the next hierarchal level.
• b. Regular inspection and preventive maintenance of a machine, its safeguards, and emergency stops.

4. Records

Records are maintained including:

• a. Records demonstrating regular inspection and preventive maintenance of machines are available for review.

5. Serious conditions that will result in a severe finding

• Any worker operating a machine in a way that has imminent or immediate risk to life or limb.

2.0.0 (2024-01-01)

Changed

• Quantified guard/e-stop pass-fail bands and new mandatory conditions added: 8.0.1 introduced numeric pass/fail bands absent from every historical appendix: machine guards 0%=conformance, <=5%=minor, <=15%=major, >15%=priority; emergency stops 0%=conformance, <=2%=minor, <=10%=major, >10%=priority. A facility with, e.g., 12% of machines lacking guards or 8% lacking functional e-stops passed under 8.0.0 (no quantified band) but now lands in the major (fail) band — a prior pass becomes a fail, hence major. New mandatory conditions were also added: machinery permits/ licenses/testing reports, verified worker use of safeguards, scheduled preventive maintenance, pre-purchase/pre-installation hazard review, and a documented gated hierarchy-of-controls process.

1.1.0 (2022-06-01)

Changed

• Safeguarding rating bands genericised to the scheme-wide severity definition: The explicit per-criterion Major/Minor bands on the surviving safeguarding provision were replaced by "See finding severity definition". The Priority immediate-risk trigger and the Not-Applicable band were preserved verbatim; no finding that passed under the old bands becomes a fail under the generic rubric, so no pass->fail flip.

Removed

• Standalone machinery permits/licenses/testing-reports provision removed: The 7.0.0 standalone permits/licenses/testing-reports provision (old B6.1, with its own Major/Minor rating) was deleted from B6 and relocated to the Health & Safety management-system clause. Removing an audit requirement loosens B6 — it only removes ways to fail — so every prior pass still passes, hence minor.

1.0.0 (2021-01-01)

Changed

• Initial historical baseline — Machine Safeguarding (RBA Code of Conduct 7.0): Earliest imported version. Two provisions: (B6.1) all required machinery permits, licenses and testing reports are in place with a renewal process, rated Major if permits/reports are missing or two or more minimum elements are missing/ineffective and Minor if one element is missing; and (B6.2) an adequate and effective machine-safeguarding program with adequate emergency stops and safeguards, safe operation, a documented machine risk assessment (pre-purchase/pre-installation hazard review), regular inspection and preventive maintenance, and worker work instructions, rated with explicit per-criterion Priority/Major/Minor bands (Priority = unsafe operation with immediate risk of life or limb).