The products people use daily get packaged in potentially hazardous environments, and workers must follow numerous proactive and preventive procedures for their sake and that of their colleagues.

Prioritizing packaging equipment safety is an excellent way to reduce accidents and keep productivity levels high. Leaders must also periodically audit their facilities to ensure there are no unnecessary and unaddressed risks. Otherwise, shortcomings could put lives at risk and increase the potential for regulatory scrutiny. What must executives do to keep their workplaces safe?

Keep All Safeguards Activated

Packaging machine safety features prevent accidents, such as by preventing the equipment from operating without those preventive measures activated. Even so, many individuals find ways around those measures, which can have disastrous consequences.

The investigations into a February 2022 case showed that deactivated safety mechanisms contributed to the death of a cardboard processing machine operator. The man died from extensive, crush-related head injuries after he leaned into the machine. Authorities exploring what happened determined that the processor caught the worker’s body parts and pulled him inside. The employee — who worked at a location that produced containers — had received appropriate training.

However, a significant issue was that someone tampered with an interlocking guard that would have cut the machine’s electrical supply if an operator lifted a viewing window with the processor running. Unfortunately, details showed that people had kept the guard off since September 2019, just a few months after the company purchased the machine.

More specifically, they kept a key inserted into a device by the viewing window, which kept it open while the machine ran. Then, workers could repeatedly reach inside to remove waste buildup when needed. Since turning off the protective feature allowed the processor to operate uninterrupted, parties may have done it for workflow reasons. However, this example shows how badly things can go wrong.

It also emphasizes the importance of teaching workers never to bypass safety features. Similarly, packaging companies should have anonymous safety reporting options that allow people to notify the appropriate parties if anyone asks them to turn off those machine components or work with any equipment that does not have them working as they should.

Even with safety-related best practices well-known, thousands of employees die daily, emphasizing the situation’s magnitude.

Understand the Dangers of Hazardous Products

Most packaging machines need various fluids, lubricants and other products to operate. A smart safety step is to give all workers details of the chemicals or other potentially hazardous products they encounter during their shift. Providing that information on wallet cards or another easily accessible format is a practical way to keep people safe.

One packaging machine safety necessity involves realizing that the products used to make equipment run smoothly may be hazardous by themselves or while mixed. One 2024 issue at a Chicago facility sent six people to the hospital and caused an explosion.

Additionally, this emergency affected staff at an urgent care facility that treated some of the parties involved. The manager took three workers to that medical center while still covered in a hydraulic fluid mixed with a solvent. The health care team contacted the fire department, and its professionals attended the scene after multiple individuals began experiencing respiratory problems after exposure to the substance.

Although all six people had non-life-threatening injuries, this account highlights how packaging equipment safety can spread to off-site locations. Although the people at the facility may have received training to handle the substances during normal circumstances, any individuals interacting with them during emergencies would not possess that knowledge.

A fire department leader said his team preliminarily identified the substance. However, it would have been far safer for everyone if the supervisor who took some of the workers to urgent care had brought details of the substance and immediately informed those assessing the employees.

Then, the medical professionals could have quickly determined whether they had the necessary knowledge and personal protective equipment to interact with the patients without putting themselves or others at risk.

Stay Abreast of Applicable Regulations Through Better Visibility

Maintaining packaging equipment safety also requires understanding and following the appropriate regulations linked to machines used during operations. For example, if the business uses cranes, the employees who operate them must have hands-on and formal training. Additionally, a qualified person must check the cranes annually and document that they have.

Similarly, federal regulations in the United States require various steps to maintain the safety of forklifts, which are common sights in many packaging plants. Those stipulations affect the machines’ design, maintenance and operation.

One possibility for obeying regulations is to hire an outside professional who can look at the company’s processes and decide if the business is at risk for violating rules soon or in the more distant future.

It is also wise to consider whether advanced technologies could make the packaging environment safer. For example, a company invested in a deep-learning and computer vision solution that can detect when incidents happen and why they occur. The solution also has a pattern-detection component that can determine when similar conditions are present and warn people before another accident.

Packaging company leaders can use the technology’s data to track trends and see whether the existing operations are sufficiently safe or have notable problems. Fortunately, data analytics tools can work quickly, assisting people in making sense of large quantities of information much faster than they could without that technological help.

Another option is using drones or other monitoring devices to spot possible safety violations. Even the most committed managers cannot be everywhere at once. However, technology can provide better visibility by showing things that humans do not see during their facility walkthroughs.

Prioritize Packaging Equipment Safety at Every Opportunity

In addition to following these suggestions, it is imperative that those overseeing packaging machine safety treat it as a constant concern. Even if a business wins multiple awards, media mentions or other praise for its accident prevention, complacency can cause critical lapses and cause it to fall behind.

If leaders get into the habit of regularly analyzing operations and how they could improve them, they will strengthen the organization’s safety culture and remind everyone that they play a role in stopping accidents.