When it comes to accidents, manufacturing ranks second highest of all industries. That comes despite OSHA regulations and American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standards. A key culprit is unguarded hazardous machinery. 

The most important machine design step is ensuring operator safety. During the design process, hazards are often identified that can be removed, but when a hazard cannot be removed, then various levels of safeguarding must be provided. These typically take the form of machine access guarding and point-of-operation guarding.

After one machine operator's hand was crushed and another's hand partially amputated,  an OSHA investigation into at Precision Custom Coatings in Totowa, NJ found that the fabric manufacturer had failed to correct an earlier violation cited for a lack of machine guarding.