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The Rockford Safety Blog: Expert Insights, Tips and Trends in Workplace Safety
Explore the Rockford Systems Safety Blog for expert insights, industry updates, and practical tips to enhance workplace safety. From machine safeguarding to lockout/tagout and combustion safety, our blog covers the topics that matter most to keeping your team safe and your operations compliant.
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How Can I perform Effective Periodic Inspections to Ensure 1910.147 Compliance?
Performing periodic inspections per 1910.147 is essential for maintaining workplace safety and compliance with OSHA regulations. These inspections serve as a proactive measure to identify and address potential hazards associated with the control of hazardous energy (lockout/tagout) systems. By conducting regular inspections, employers can ensure that lockout/tagout procedures are properly implemented, equipment is effectively maintained,…
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Mobile Lockout/Tagout (LOTO) Solutions Transforming Workplace Safety
Rockford, IL, March 19th, 2024 — Rockford Systems, LLC, a leader in machine safeguarding, proudly announces its expansion into Lockout/Tagout (LOTO) solutions for the safety industry. Rockford Systems has a history of experience and expertise that has positioned us perfectly to excel in the field of both Lockout/Tagout and Machine Safeguarding with in-depth knowledge of…
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Hydrogen Combustion: An Approaching Reality?
How long until heat treat operations use hydrogen for combustion? Considerations like cost and pipeline infrastructure are key in answering this question. For these industry experts, the consensus is clear: It is uncertain when, but hydrogen is coming. Doug Glenn, publisher of Heat Treat Today, moderated a panel of four industry experts in 2023 during…
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An Overview of Perimeter Safeguarding
Perimeter safeguarding is perhaps the simplest, most affordable way to create a safer workplace for your employees. No matter the industry, installing perimeter safeguarding around hazardous areas — such as robotic cells, processing lines, press brakes, shears, welders, and other heavy machinery — can significantly reduce the risk of injury by preventing employees from encountering…
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Rockford Combustion Systems offers expertise and experience to improve NFPA compliance, worker safety, efficiency, and air quality, while reducing the risk of fires and explosions.
Rockford’s job is to ensure workers understand how to maintain the safety equipment as well as the functions of that safety equipment and what can happen if that safety equipment is circumvented. (Courtesy: Rockford Combustion Solutions) For industrial furnaces and ovens to do their jobs involves a lot of potentially dangerous and hazardous machinery and…
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What to Do if You are Issued an OSHA Citation
The Occupational Health & Safety Administration (OSHA) is the federal agency responsible for overseeing workplace safety. On the federal level, OSHA conducted 24,333 inspections in 2021. Of these 24,333 inspections, 10,584 (about 43 percent) were programmed inspections that focused OSHA’s enforcement resources towards industries and operations where known hazards exist. If a violation is discovered…
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Strategies to Reduce Nitrogen Oxides (NOx)
Nitrogen oxides (NOx) are a collection of highly reactive chemical compounds formed during combustion processes, partly from nitrogen compounds in the fuel, but mostly by direct combination of atmospheric oxygen and nitrogen in flames. One chemical reactant of NOx is nitrogen gas (N2). Formed by two nitrogen atoms, N2 lacks smell, color, and taste. N2 is also…
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Do Your Machines Have Anti-Restart Protection? Here’s How to Find Out
ROCKFORD, IL, JULY 19, 2022 — In order to meet certain regulations, and as a best safety practice, machinery must be prevented from automatically or unintentionally restarting when an unscheduled power interruption occurs. The safety regulations that reference preventing accidental operation can be found in OSHA 1910.217 (b)(8)(ii) and ANSI B11.1-2009 (6)(2)(3). OSHA 1910 Subpart…
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What The Wave of Retiring Machinists Means to Plant Safety
ROCKFORD, IL, MAY 17, 2022 – Within the next decade approximately 2.7 million “Baby Boomers” (b. 1946-1964) will retire, thereby ensuring that tens of thousands of skilled, well-paid positions will become available without a ready supply of American workers to fill them. Statistics paint an especially gloomy picture for the manufacturing sector, a widening of…
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Machine Safeguarding Technology Keep Operators Out of a Pinch
ROCKFORD, IL, APRIL 25, 2022 — Pinching your finger in a door can be painful but certainly not life threatening. Pinch point injuries involving industrial machinery are another story, one that rarely has a happy ending. A pinch point is created when two objects come together and there is a possibility that a person could be…
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Rockford Combustion Systems offers expertise and experience to improve NFPA compliance, worker safety, efficiency, and air quality, while reducing the risk of fires and explosions
For industrial furnaces and ovens to do their jobs involves a lot of potentially dangerous and hazardous machinery and materials. To run this equipment, workers need to be trained properly in order to avoid injuries — or worse. Rockford Systems takes those demands seriously and has been working with safeguarding mechanical equipment and, by extension,…
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Rockford Systems Introduces Protector Series Light Curtains with Expanded Features
Reliable detection, advanced safety functions, combined with simplified selection, installation and maintenance ROCKFORD, IL, FEBRUARY 3, 2022 — Rockford Systems, LLC today introduced its new Protector Series Light Curtains for safeguarding personnel near industrial machinery with the potential to cause injury. Protector Series Light Curtains feature bi-color alignment indicators, simplified resolution settings, automatic diagnostics, remote…
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Lack of Combustion System Training Puts Facility Managers in the Hot Seat
Large and complex fuel-fired equipment necessitates special training. Given the thousands of boilers, furnaces and ovens currently in use worldwide, the potential of a combustion system malfunctioning is ever-present, especially as these systems grow in scale and complexity. Add to this a single-point failure, and an unqualified operator could inadvertently render a critical fuel system…
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Ten Tips for Safeguarding Your Shop’s Metal Lathes
Operators of lathes are one of the largest machine worker populations in the United States, estimated to account for over 140,000 machinists. Of this population, approximately 3,000 suffer lost-time injuries annually in the United States. Some of these are fatal. These accidents occur in large industrial settings and factories, as well as in much smaller…
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OSHA, Happy Golden Anniversary!
The Williams-Steiger Occupational Safety and Health Act signed into law by President Richard M. Nixon on December 29, 1970 – that measure that created OSHA – gave the federal government the authority to set and enforce safety and health standards for most of the country’s workers. The agency’s responsibilities include private sector employers and their…
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Rockford Systems Celebrates 50-Year Anniversary
Rockford Systems celebrates 50 years in business in 2021. Rockford Systems was founded on December 15, 1971 in Rockford, Illinois by two pioneers in the science of machine safeguarding, Richard (Dick) Provi together with his business partner Dennis Ebens. From a modest office in Ebens’ basement, a business was born that has gone on to…
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Machine Risk Assessment vs. Safeguarding Assessment? Start 2021 off on the right safety foot.
When it comes to accidents, manufacturing ranks second highest of all industries. That comes despite OSHA regulations and American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standards. A key culprit is unguarded hazardous machinery. OSHA issues thousands of citations and levies millions of dollars in fines for machine safeguarding violations in an attempt to prevent injuries and save…
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Lack of Machine Guarding Again Named to OSHA’S Top 10 Most Cited Violations List
Every year around this time, the awards season kicks off with the Emmys, Golden Globes and the grand daddy of them all, the Oscars, eagerly announcing their lists of nominations. At the same time — and on a far more somber note — another roll call is issued, this one from the Occupational Safety &…
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