Machine Shop Safety
Machine shop safety is a very important topic and the recent tragedy at Yale University highlights the need to use all machining and woodworking equipment safely. Emergency Management and Environmental Safety & Health (EMESH) collaborates with schools and departments to provide training, perform safety assessments for machine shops and to provide guidelines for the safe operation of machines and machine tools.
Two important focus areas of machine shop safety are:
- All users must be aware of and abide by the machine shop safety rules for their shop - these should be based on the Machine Shop Safety Guidelines
- All users must be trained and evaluated in the safe operation of the particular machines they will be using. This training and evaluation is conducted by the Shop Supervisor or users are required to attend training such as the program offered at the Physics/SEAS Instructional Shop.
Access to shops should be limited to trained users. Work in shops should not be conducted alone.
EMESH Services
- Review of machine shop operation and shop rules. Review of specific intent for use of shop with shop supervisor(s) to ensure safe use.
- Provide training on Basic Machine Shop Safety to shop users in academic science areas, facilities staff that use machines and for students that use machines as part of their coursework (Note: training and evaluation on actual machine use provided by shop supervisor, instructor or other shop specific means).
- Maintain an inventory of shops on campus.
- Conduct annual inspections of shops and labs with machines/shops, including a review of safeguards and machines and provide feedback to shop owners.
