Rockford Systems LLC and The Master Lock Company have announced a new joint initiative designed to accelerate the adoption of safety technologies throughout the North American manufacturing sector. The two industry-leading companies are teaming up to reduce workplace accidents, improve job efficiencies, and help ensure manufacturers are in compliance with the latest OSHA, ANSI, and NFPA 79 machine-guarding and lockout/tagout standards.
Even with strict machine and operator safety regulations in place, unguarded hazardous machinery remains a major source of fatalities, amputations and other traumatic injuries in manufacturing plants. According to OSHA, nearly 18,000 machine operators suffer non-fatal injuries each year in the United States. Rockford Systems estimates more than half the manufacturers in the United States do not fully comply with critical requirements for machine safeguarding or lockout/tagout.
The Master Lock Company helps facilities create safer work environments and ensure lockout compliance through comprehensive consulting services. The partnership with Rockford Systems enables The Master Lock Company to broaden its services to include machine guarding assessments and physical safeguarding solutions, providing an end-to-end lockout and machine guarding solution for customers.
“The combination of Rockford Systems’ machine safeguarding expertise and industry knowledge, together with The Master Lock Company, which has been a leader in lockout for nearly thirty years with industry-leading expertise, comprehensive consulting services and innovative physical products, will enable our customers to rapidly identify safety deficiencies and deploy machine guarding and lockout/tagout solutions,” said Joe Nitiss, CEO of Rockford Systems. “It is exciting to form an alliance with a partner that shares our core values as closely as The Master Lock Company.”
In its role, Rockford Systems will provide on-site custom safety consulting services using the Machine Safety Assessment Tool (MSAT), which was jointly developed by the two companies. Performed as a stand-alone service or in conjunction with other services, the MSAT assessment helps companies identify situations that place machine operators or maintenance personnel in serious, life-threatening danger because of the absence of machine safeguarding.
“For many of our on-site lockout/tagout assessments or procedure development projects, our customers also ask for high-quality machine guarding solutions. Our partnership with Rockford Systems will allow us to offer one-stop safeguarding solutions to meet all of our customer’s needs,” said Matt Dudgeon, Director of Product Marketing at The Master Lock Company. “We are excited to partner with Rockford Systems because they have been experts at machine safeguarding for over forty-five years and are as committed to workplace safety as The Master Lock Company.”
The Master Lock Company helps business protect their workers and ensure compliance through Professional Lockout Services, which include lockout program development, written lockout procedures, compliance training, and inspections and audits.
For more information on The Master Lock Company’s Professional Lockout Services, visit www.masterlock.com/plos.
For more information on Rockford Systems, please visit www.rockfordsystems.com.
