V.I.P Petfoods (Aust) Pty Ltd

Incident description:

On 23 November 2007 a worker sustained serious injuries when his clothing became entangled in the exposed drive shaft of an ambient chiller.

The court acknowledged V.I.P. Petfoods (Aust.) Pty Ltd (defendant) engaged the injured worker through a labour hire company.

The court found the defendant held obligations under s.28(1) of the Workplace Health and Safety Act 1995 being a person in conducting a business or undertaking.

The investigation findings presented to the court alleged the incident occurred while the injured worker and a supervisor were engaged in cleaning 'spray nozzles' on an item of plant described as a 'chiller'. Within the chiller work area was an unguarded drive shaft in operation. While the injured worker was accessing the area around the unguarded drive shaft his shirt became entangled drawing him into the machine.

The investigation findings presented to the court revealed:

• the defendant failed to guard the moving drive shaft parts of the chiller
• the defendant did not provide safe access for workers cleaning the chiller machine whilst it was in operation.

Court result:

The defendant pleaded guilty in the Beenleigh Industrial Magistrates Court on 1 May 2009 to breaching s.24(1) of the Workplace Health and Safety Act 1995, having failed to meet its workplace health and safety obligations.

Industrial Magistrate Mr Peter Webber ordered the defendant pay a penalty of $40 000 as well as investigation, professional and court costs totaling $2769.40.

In deciding the penalty imposed Industrial Magistrate Mr Peter Webber took into account the defendant had co-operated with the investigation and entered an early plea of guilty when ordering no conviction be recorded.

Considerations for prevention:

When working in the manufacturing industry where there is exposure to risks from moving machine parts, obligation holders should apply a risk management approach to ensure the selection of suitable control measures.

Risk management involves identifying the hazards, evaluating the consequences and likelihood of harm that may result from the hazard, deciding on and implementing control measures to prevent or minimise the level of the risk from the hazard and monitoring the effectiveness of the control measures to ensure they remain working correctly.

When deciding on and implementing control measures associated with the risk of being entangled in moving machine parts, obligation holders should consider guarding all moving machine parts to prevent inadvertent access as well as providing workers with information, instruction and training on safe operating procedures to follow when performing maintenance on machines with moving parts.

Visit the Workplace Health and Safety Queensland website for more information on:

• manufacturing industry health and safety information
• modifying plant, machinery or equipment
• managing the safety of labour hire workers
• risk management
• Workplace Health and Safety Act 1995
• Risk Management Code of Practice 2007.