Ace Bakery fined $55K for lack of lockout procedures
Ace Bakery has been fined $55,000, plus a 25 per cent victim fine surcharge, after a worker suffered critical injuries. The worker was performing maintenance work on a bread machine when it activated.
On Aug. 8, 2017, a worker was performing maintenance work on a bread machine at the Ace Bakery's food processing plant in Mississauga, Ont. The guillotine knife on the machine needed to be adjusted so that the knife would cut the dough evenly. The work was being performed in the presence of a supervisor and a senior director of product development.
In order to access the relevant portion of the machinery, the worker first opened a safety gate. This gate is interlocked so that when it is opened, the machinery cannot be activated or started.
The worker then opened the doors to a mechanical cabinet on the machine in order to access mechanical components to make the adjustments. These cabinet doors were not equipped with interlocks and the worker did not activate the emergency stop button, shut down or lock out the machinery.
While the worker and the senior director of product development were making the adjustments in the mechanical cabinet, the supervisor closed the interlocked safety gate. This caused the bread machine to activate and cycle.
The worker received crushing injuries while caught between one of the machine's moving parts and the frame of the bread machine. The machine was stopped and the worker was taken to hospital for treatment.
Section 76 of Ontario Regulation 851 - the Industrial Establishments Regulation - provides that if the starting of a machine "may endanger the safety of any worker, control switches or other control mechanisms shall be locked out and other effective precautions necessary to prevent any starting shall be taken."
Ace Bakery failed as an employer to ensure that the measures and procedures prescribed by section 76 of Ontario Regulation 851 were carried out at the project contrary to section 25(1)(c) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
Source: Ontario Ministry of Labour
