J.D. Thompson Personnel Pty Ltd trading as jobwire.com

Incident description:

A worker employed by a labour hire company sustained an injury when contracted to a frozen food manufacturing company. On the day of the incident, the worker was placing lids on filled tubs of ice cream which were on a conveyor belt. She noticed a lid from one of the ice cream tubs on the bottom belt of the conveyor and tried to remove the lid while the conveyor was still running. The worker's left hand and arm got caught and was dragged into the conveyor between the lower belt and lower roller. The worker received crush injuries, a fracture and cuts to her left arm.

Investigation findings:

There were no isolation procedures to shut down machinery in the Induction notes of the factory where the incident took place. There was also no emergency stop mechanism fitted to the conveyor.

Considerations for prevention:

After the incident, the company replaced the conveyor involved in the incident with a differently designed conveyor. The company also installed emergency stop buttons on all conveyers. Workers have received training in relation to the shutting down of conveyers in the case of emergency. A new freezing loading conveyer was constructed and delivered to site and a risk assessment was conducted by the company and the conveyer was sent back for modifications following concerns raised in the risk assessment process. Lower drums will be guarded to prevent physical access to the nip point.

Obligation holders should consider the requirements of the Plant Code of Practice 2005, in particular part 5.2 Design and Manufacture - specifically AS1755 Conveyers – Design, Construction, Installation and Operation - Safety Requirements, part 5.10 Industrial robots and other remotely or automatically energised equipment and part 5.22 Instructing, Training and Supervising Workers. They should also consider section 35 of the Workplace Health and Safety Act 1995 (PDF, 766 kB)'obligations of owners of plant'.

Court result:

The company was fined $37,000 with no conviction recorded. The frozen food manufacturing company was required to change its systems of work under an enforceable undertaking.

• Plant Code of Practice 2005
• Standards covering design, manufacture and use of plant