OSHA Inspection: YAZOO MILLS, INCORPORATED

Issued

Apr 22, 2015

Abate by

May 27, 2015

Penalty

Initial $4,900 · Current $3,675 Reduced

General-duty citation text

29 CFR 1910.212(a)(1): Machine guarding was not provided to protect operators and other employees from hazards created by ingoing nip points:    (a) Recut - The employer had five Paco semi-automatic single spindle paper tube recutters.  Each of these machines had an arm with two idle rollers.  This arm sat at the far right end (facing the front of the machine) of a shaft, located toward the rear of the machine.  During a machine cycle, the shaft holding the arm with the idle rollers moved the arm forward to put the idle rollers in contact with the far right end of the rotating arbor, forming an ingoing nip point.  None of the machines had guarding to protect employees from the hazard of the ingoing nip point created between the idle rollers and the rotating arbor, on or about January 7, 2015.    Abatement certification and documentation required within 10 days after abatement date. The certification shall include a statement that abatement is complete, the date and method of abatement, and state that employees and their representatives were informed of this abatement. Abatement documentation shall include documents demonstrating that abatement is complete, such as evidence of the purchase or repair of equipment, photographic or video evidence of abatement or other written records.

Issued

Apr 22, 2015

Abate by

May 27, 2015

Penalty

Initial $0 · Current $0

General-duty citation text

29 CFR 1910.212(a)(3)(ii): Points of operation of machinery were not guarded to prevent employees from having any part of their body in the danger zones during operating cycles:  (a) Recut - The five Paco semi-automatic single spindle paper tube recutters did not have guarding to prevent employees from having any part of their body in the point of operation danger zone during operating cycles in that these machines had only a 180-degree semi-circular guard to protect the front of the rotating knife bar even though the point of operation consisted of both the rotating knife bar and the rotating mandrel/arbor.  To actuate a machine cycle, the operator, who stands at the front of the recutter, must reach across the machine to push the two vertical trip levers located at the back of the machine.  After pushing, the trip levers, the operator brings his or her hands back across the point of operation as the machine, which has a full-revolution clutch, cycles.  The operator can get hands and fingers into the point of operation, for example, by pushing an incorrectly placed tube further onto the rotating mandrel/arbor and getting hands and fingers pulled into the ingoing nip point formed at the bottom of the knife bar and mandrel/arbor during a machine cycle, on or about January 7, 2015.  Abatement certification and documentation required within 10 days after abatement date. The certification shall include a statement that abatement is complete, the date and method of abatement, and state that employees and their representatives were informed of this abatement. Abatement documentation shall include documents demonstrating that abatement is complete, such as evidence of the purchase or repair of equipment, photographic or video evidence of abatement or other written records.

Issued

Apr 22, 2015

Penalty

Initial $700 · Current $525 Reduced

General-duty citation text

29 CFR 1904.39(a)(2): Within twenty-four (24) hours after the in-patient hospitalization of one or more employees or an employee's amputation or an employee's loss of an eye, as a result of a work-related incident, the employer did not report the in-patient hospitalization, amputation, or loss of an eye to OSHA:    (a) Yazoo Mills, Inc., 305 Commerce Street, New Oxford, Pennsylvania - An employee suffered an amputation of the right index finger on January 7, 2015 as a result of getting the right hand caught in the ingoing nip point that exists at the bottom of the rotating mandrel/arbor and rotating knife bar on the Paco semi-automatic single spindle paper tube recutter, model SAR-32, serial number 1025-32.  The employer failed to report this work-related amputation to OSHA within 24 hours.  (The employer reported this amputation to OSHA on January 9, 2015.)