Last October, a 26-year-old employee at Faurecia Emissions Control Systems in Franklin, Ohio, was fatally crushed. According to OSHA, the worker had been on the job for about a year and was placing cardboard under a machine that bends vehicle exhaust pipes at the time of the accident.
The company is a subsidiary of Faurecia North America which, in 2022, combined with Hella to form Forvia, one of the world’s largest automotive suppliers with more than 150,000 workers across more than 40 countries. Faurecia North America operates 29 factories in the U.S.
The accident triggered an OSHA investigation and now the company is facing $314,555 in fines after the safety agency found that the death could have been prevented if only it provided proper machine guarding.
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OSHA issued 10 instance-by-instance citations after finding the company did not properly train employees in lockout/tagout procedures, this includes temporary workers. Investigators also found that Faurecia failed to include detailed lockout/tagout procedures, conduct yearly safety tests and adequately guard machines.
In 2022, the company was cited for similar violations at the same location.
The company has 15 business days to comply, request an informal conference, or contest the findings.
In January 2023, the U.S. Department of Labor issued guidance on the expanded application of instance-By-instance (IBI) citations for high-gravity serious OSHA violations. OSHA officials can apply IBI penalty adjustments as a deterrent. Previously, IBIs only applied to willful citations, but OSHA thought a more expansive application could incentivize employers to proactively prevent workplace fatalities and injuries — it would also give OSHA regulators another tool to help ensure safe work environments, especially when dealing with repeat offenders and catastrophic accidents.
Since 2019, OSHA has opened nearly 1,700 machine hazard inspections just in Ohio. In a statement, OSHA Area Director Ken Montgomery said, “safety must never be an afterthought … [it] has to be a core company value, especially in the manufacturing industry.”
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