It is important for those who run industrial steel fabrication businesses to take steps to prevent workplace accidents. Here are two ways that they can do this.

Provide employees with the appropriate safety gear

Steel fabrication activities often involve the use of very powerful machinery and equipment, including pillar drills, band saws, welding machines and power hammers. To ensure that employees do not sustain injuries as a result of using these items, the owners of industrial steel fabrication facilities must provide them with safety gear.

The type of safety gear that may be required will vary, depending on which piece of equipment or machinery an employee needs to use. For example, when operating a pillar drill or a power hammer, employees should be provided with safety glasses to prevent any tiny shards of steel that become airborne from entering and cutting their eyes. They should also be given hairnets to prevent any loose strands of hair from getting caught in the moving components of the equipment.

For welding work, employees should be provided with UV-protective safety glasses to reduce their risk of developing ultraviolet keratitis as a result of being exposed to the light produced by the welding equipment, as well as leather aprons to ensure that the molten metal or sparks from the welding equipment do not burn their skin. They should also be given protective ear muffs so that they do not develop hearing loss as a result of the loud noise generated by the equipment.

Implement strict policies regarding the pre-inspection of machinery

Many of the accidents that occur in steel fabrication facilities are the result of employees forgetting or choosing not to thoroughly inspect the machinery before they start to use it. Failing to do this can increase the chances of a serious fault within the machinery going unnoticed and eventually leading to the injury of the operator.

For example, if a pillar drill's adjustment lever develops a defect which is not discovered and repaired during a pre-inspection, the person who next uses this piece of equipment could be injured if the lever malfunctions and causes the worktable to collapse midway through the process of drilling a piece of steel. In this situation, the steel could fall off the worktable, onto the person's foot. Due to the weight of steel, this could leave the worker with a deep wound or a bone fracture.

As such, it is crucial for those who run steel fabrication facilities to implement very strict policies when it comes to performing pre-inspections of machinery.