Guillotine With No Guard, Worn Hold-Downs and a 55 kg Sheet

Ranked by potential for serious injury, not by convenience:

1. Guard removed from a treadle-operated shear. This is the highest risk on the list, because a treadle machine can be tripped by a foot, a falling offcut or a stumble, and the hazard is a powered blade closing on fingers. The 'keep back' tape is not a guard - it relies on the operator remembering, and it fails the moment the hold-downs slip and the operator reaches in to steady the sheet. Work equipment must be fitted with guards that prevent access to dangerous parts; removing one because it fouled a job is not an acceptable trade-off.
2. Worn hold-downs allowing 3 mm of creep. This is not just an accuracy problem. The creep is what drives the operator's hands towards the blade. A machine that does not hold the work cannot be safely operated, and it produces out-of-tolerance blanks.
3. Risk assessment not updated after the guard removal. The paper on file describes a different machine from the one in the workshop. Anyone relying on it is being misled, and there is no record that the change was ever considered.
4. Manual handling of 55 kg, 3 m sheets, with no assessment or aid. The guideline handling figure of about 20 kg applies to an ideal lift close to the body; a 3 m flexible, sharp-edged sheet of 55 kg is far outside that, and the length makes it a two-person job that still needs planning.
5. Untrained delivery driver offered as labour. He has no training, no induction on this equipment, and may not be covered by insurance for site work. Well-meant help is still a hazard.
6. Supervisor absent and no authority for the change - this is why items 1 and 3 survived for two years.
7. Sheets stacked on edge against a wall - a falling 3 m sheet is a crush hazard.

Stop the job first. The machine goes out of service - isolated, and tagged or locked so nobody starts it 'just for one cut'. That decision does not need the supervisor's permission; anyone who identifies the risk can and should stop the work.

Then, in order:

• Refit guarding. Restore the fixed front guard or fit an interlocked guard that actually suits the work, and prove the interlock stops the machine before the hands can reach the blade. If the original guard fouled the job, the guard needs modifying or the job needs a different machine - not the guard leaving off.
• Repair the hold-downs. Replace or adjust the pads so the sheet is held without creep, and test on an offcut.
• Review and re-record the risk assessment for the machine as it now is, and brief everyone on it.
• Plan the handling: vacuum or mechanical sheet lifter, or a scissor-lift table at the stack and a trestle at the shear and folder, so the sheet is never carried 6 m by hand.
• Confirm competence: the experienced sheet metalworker operates; the apprentice works under supervision and not at the blade; the driver does not assist with lifting or operating.

Authority: the employer has the duty to provide safe work equipment, and the change should be authorised by the supervisor or workshop manager and recorded. But the guard being back on is not a discretionary management decision - it is a legal minimum, and if it cannot be achieved today the job is subcontracted or the material is ordered pre-cut. A deadline is not a reason to defeat a guard.

Quantify it first. Volume = 3.05 × 1.50 × 0.0015 = 0.00686 m³. At 7850 kg/m³ that is about 54 kg, so the stated 55 kg is right - this is not a two-person lift of a compact load, it is a long, flexible, sharp sheet.

Why it is worse than the number suggests: the load is 3 m long, so the centre of mass is far from the body; it will flex and whip; it has an unprotected sheared edge; and it has to be turned and presented to the shear and folder repeatedly. Two people share roughly 27 kg each, but they cannot stand close to the load, and the lift is asymmetric - one person takes the weight while the other steers.

Controls, in the hierarchy order:

1. Eliminate the carry: cut the job at the stack where possible, or have the supplier deliver at 1500 mm. Shortening the load is the single most effective control.
2. Mechanical aid: a vacuum sheet lifter on a jib, or a scissor-lift table at the stack with a roller trestle at the shear and folder so the sheet is slid, not carried.
3. Reduce the unit weight: one person per 1500 mm blank rather than per full sheet.
4. Procedural: trained two-person lift minimum, gauntlets and safety footwear, a planned route with nothing to trip over, no lift above shoulder height, and a rule that nobody lifts alone.
5. Storage: blanks racked vertically in a proper stillage, not leaned against a wall where a knock brings 55 kg down on someone.

Record it on a handling assessment and brief the squad; then check the controls are actually being used at the end of the shift, because the tidy-looking stack against the wall is where good intentions usually end.