
Machine Risk Assessment Program
Providing on-site risk assessments and machine safeguarding audits of industrial machinery to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), OSHA, American National Standards Institute (ANSI), National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), Robotic Industries Association (RIA) and applicable International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards. We also offer a full range of additional services including training, advisory and industrial safety solutions.
Business owners, managers and other stakeholders are required by U.S. federal law to provide a safe work environment for your employees. Specifically, this general duty clause of OSHA regulation 29 CFR 1910 requires you to provide a workplace free of recognized hazards.
Our machine risk assessment and safeguarding audit services can help stakeholders, such as factory owners, asset owners and employers, proactively meet their regulatory workplace safety needs and may protect against injuries and loss. In the unfortunate event of an OSHA citation, injury or loss, our services can provide expert assessment of cause and identify additional hazards with options for addressing and mitigating risks.
Since 1894, we have been trusted with safety, providing engineering expertise and helping our customers manage risk. We are an unbiased independent third party, providing risk mitigation services that create safe work environments and peace of mind. We are experienced on the factory floor, and our expanded services offer site and machinery safety assessments to protect against injuries and loss.
The complexity of today’s automated machines, collaborative robots (cobots) and robotic cell integration establishes a new workplace environment with additional risks and hazards. Upgrades, retrofits, aging machinery, periodic maintenance, worker modifications and other machine interactions can change the original configuration of your machines, creating a potential hazard. Watch our video to understand the importance of machine risk assessment.
To effectively manage risk, you must know where potential hazards exist and minimize or eliminate the hazard. In addition, workplace hazard assessments are required by law under 29 CFR 1910:
The employer shall verify that the required workplace hazard assessment has been performed through a written certification that identifies the workplace evaluated; the person certifying that the evaluation has been performed; the date(s) of the hazard assessment; and, which identifies the document as a certification of hazard assessment.
We provide on-site risk assessments and machine safeguarding audits of industrial machinery to OSHA, ANSI, NFPA, RIA and applicable ISO standards. Audits and risk assessments include identification of hazards, risk level estimates and recommended risk reduction (safeguarding) methods.
Our assessment services are based on the following standards:
We provide three levels of machine safeguarding assessments. Choose the level of assessment that fits your needs.
Detailed descriptions of each level are shown below. Contact us for questions or a discussion on which type of assessment is right for you. We can provide example reports upon request.
Expand each section to learn more about the specific service levels.
On-site hazard assessments identify machine hazards and risk estimates, and provide machine safeguarding recommendations. This approach is typically applied to multiple machines and is a cost-effective method for performing plantwide machine safety assessments. For identical and similar machines, one typical report is generated that can be applied to all machines.
Each machine hazard assessment report includes the following:
A machine safety assessment includes all inspections and activities from the hazard assessment, plus inspection and observation of a machine in operation to identify existing hazards, machine safeguarding, safety systems and risk reduction measures. This inspection may include discussions or interviews with operators and maintenance personnel.
Each machine safety assessment report includes the following:
A machine risk assessment includes all inspections and activities in our machine hazard and machine safety assessments. As part of the process, we also incorporate interviews and discussion with your staff including engineering, operators, maintenance and safety personnel (as available), and completion of an ANSI/RIA risk assessment document in addition to the safety report.
Each ANSI/RIA machine risk assessment report includes the following:
This assessment pairs our experts with the customers’ key staff roles to perform an in-depth assessment of the machine. Our experts will facilitate machine inspection, guide discussion, and provide a compliant ANSI/RIA risk assessment spreadsheet. You will be responsible for the following authorized personnel during the assessment: operator, maintenance, engineering and environment health and safety (EHS).
Our experts will guide the customer’s team as needed to:
To help ensure that we can meet all of your assessment needs in one place, we offer a full range of additional machine risk assessment and safeguarding audit services, including training, advisory and industrial safety solutions.
We provide an extensive library of courses to support you in developing a culture of safety and a healthy workplace environment. Our courses are available as open registration public workshops, on-site training courses or on-demand e-learning programs. Course topics include:
To view a comprehensive list of our training courses, please visit UL’s Knowledge Solutions and PureSafety® on Demand.
Machine Risk Assessment Program