Industrial robots are experiencing a boom. Once found almost exclusively in large manufacturing facilities such as car plants, these high-tech production tools are rapidly expanding into smaller warehouses and local assembly lines. This shift is occurring due to lower costs that make manufacturing robots more economical choices. However, these changes come with some serious physical dangers for workers when safety protocols are skirted or ignored.
The shift to smaller manufacturing floors
Safety rules for production robots were pieced together by corporations and government regulation through years of trial and error. While these rules are well established at this point, new adopters of the technology often lack the safety infrastructure and know-how of larger companies. When a small operation installs a robotic arm without the proper safety measures, the workspace can quickly become dangerous.
Common causes of robot-related accidents
New users often struggle to protect human workers around heavy, fast machines. Workers suffer severe injuries when businesses fail to implement these systems properly. Risks often stem from a few core failures:
- Poor machine guarding: Businesses fail to install physical barriers or proximity sensors that stop the robot when a person enters the work zone.
- Badly coded movements: Coding errors or bad paths cause robotic arms to swing outside of their set work areas.
- Poor lockout rules: Repair workers enter active work zones without fully cutting the main power supply.
These basic failures often result in severe injuries.
Real-world consequences for workers
When an industrial robot strikes a worker, the results are often deadly. For example, a worker at a food plant suffered fatal injuries when a machine suddenly turned on while he was inspecting it. In another event, a robotic arm crushed a worker who was doing routine repairs. This shows the immense force these machines use. According to federal safety data, robot accidents often involve crushing, pinning or blunt force trauma. Knowing these specific dangers helps employers build stronger safety rules.