Unplanned or unscheduled maintenance can cause serious injury to plant floor workers. When operators are rushed or attempting to minimize downtime, the results can have negative consequences. Plant management must have a task-based risk assessment system in place for unscheduled maintenance, according to Fred Hayes, PMMI’s risk assessment expert, and it must become part of the plant’s culture.
Every litigation case Hayes has worked on that involved a severe injury or death was by machine movement that was either unplanned or unexpected. “I had one case where an operator started a machine when another operator was clearly in it,” states Hayes. “To the person who went through a three-step startup process, it wasn’t unplanned. But to the person that was reaching into the machine clearing the jam, it was a totally unplanned and unexpected machine movement. When things move unexpectedly, people get hurt. That’s the bottom line.”
