Midlands-based Kenray Forming, which manufactures forming sets and provides ancillary parts and services for the packaging industry, was investigated by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) following the incident in which a 41-year-old employee slipped and caught his hand inside an unguarded bagging machine.
The staff member, who was hospitalised for three days after the accident, trapped his left hand between the machine’s vacuum pull belt and the roller resulting in multiple fractures to all of his fingers on that hand and the loss of his ring finger below the first knuckle.
At the hearing at Hinckley Magistrates’ Court on 20 December the company pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 11 (1) of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998.
It states that employers should take measures to prevent access to any dangerous part of machinery or to any rotating stock-bar; or to stop the movement of any dangerous part of machinery or rotating stock-bar before any part of a person enters a danger zone.
The company was fined £10,000 and ordered to pay costs of £1,932. Following the hearing HSE inspector Richenda Dixon said that the incident had been entirely preventable.
She added: "It would not have happened if the available guards, which are there to protect machine operators, had not been removed. Kenray Forming should have had a system in place to ensure the guarding mechanisms remained permanently in place."
The HSE confirmed that since the incident Kenray Forming had put extra guards in place, replaced old ones and established a process so that employees needed to physically check on a daily basis that guards were in place and that interlocks were working.
Kenray Forming declined to comment.
