8.4 Work Equipment and Mobile Plant: Earthmoving Machines, Hand and Power Tools, Compressors and Guarding

The legal duties for plant

• OSHA 1994 section 15(2)(a) and (b): employers must provide and maintain plant and systems of work that are, so far as practicable, safe and without risks to health, and make arrangements for the safe use, handling, storage and transport of plant.
• Section 20: a person who designs, manufactures, imports or supplies plant for use at work must ensure, so far as practicable, that it is designed and built to be safe when properly used. The supplier must arrange testing and provide adequate information on safe use. Plant hire companies are suppliers.
• CDM 2024:
  • regulation 17(1)(e): contractors use only people with the necessary skills, knowledge, training and experience
  • regulation 30: vehicles and mobile plant
  • regulation 27: electricity and services
  • regulation 19(5): working space for plant
• Plant Requiring Certificate of Fitness Regulations 2024: cranes, hoists, gondolas, aerial working platforms and pressure vessels need certificates of fitness. Material handling equipment (defined to include forklifts, conveyors, excavators, tractors, dumpers and bulldozers) and crawler piling and drilling rigs are excluded by the Third Schedule, so their safety rests on OSHA's general duties, CDM and the manufacturer's instructions.
• Repealed rules: the FM (Guarding of Machinery and Safety) Regulations 1970 were repealed on 1 June 2024. Guarding is now required through section 15, the supplier duties in section 20, and recognised machinery standards.

Earthmoving and mobile plant

Main hazards

Controls

1. Plan routes and segregate people and plant (CDM regulation 29): one-way systems, exclusion zones around operating machines, and pedestrian barriers.
2. Competent, authorised operators trained on the machine type, with a written authorisation from the employer. Where DOSH requires registration for the plant type, such as crane operators, check that it is valid. Nobody operates plant without the key-holder's permission, and keys are removed when the machine is left.
3. Pre-use checks by the operator: brakes, steering, lights, horn, reversing alarm and camera, mirrors, tyres or tracks, hydraulic leaks, seat belt, and rollover or falling-object protection (ROPS/FOPS) in place. Record defects. A machine with a safety-critical defect is tagged out of use.
4. Visibility: mirrors, cameras or proximity warning systems; banksmen for reversing where reversing cannot be designed out; high-visibility clothing.
5. Edges and slopes: stop blocks and bunds at tipping points (regulation 30(5)); stay outside excavation zones of influence; work within the manufacturer's slope limits.
6. No passengers unless a seat is provided (regulation 30(4)). Never lift people in buckets or on forks unless the equipment is a purpose-built work platform designed for that machine.
7. Quick hitches: confirm the safety locking pin or device is engaged every time a bucket is changed, by a visual check plus a test such as crowding the bucket against the ground. Quick-hitch bucket drops have killed workers.
8. Excavators used for lifting only if the machine is designed and equipped for lifting by its manufacturer (rated lifting points, check valves, load chart) and the lift is planned as a lifting operation (Section 8.3).
9. Parking: on level ground, bucket or blade lowered, parking brake on, engine off, key removed.
10. Forklifts (including telehandlers): operated by trained drivers; forks lowered when travelling; no carrying of people except in an approved integrated work platform. DOSH's falls guideline (section 6.3) sets out conditions for forklift work platforms: guardrails, a 2 m high guard at the back, a locked-out tilt function or restraint, a displayed safe working load, and the platform secured to the forks.

Hand and power tools

The bursting of a revolving vessel, wheel, grindstone or grinding wheel driven by mechanical power is a dangerous occurrence under NADOPOD (Second Schedule Part I item 7).

Compressors, air tools and pressure vessels

• Air receivers on compressors are pressure vessels. They need a certificate of fitness under the 2024 Regulations unless exempted by the Second Schedule, for example vessels designed for no more than 15 psig, or with an internal diameter of no more than six inches.
• Hoses: use the correct couplings, whip checks (restraint cables) across hose joints, and protect hoses from vehicles.
• Never use compressed air to clean clothing or skin, or point it at anyone. Air can enter the skin or body.
• Before disconnecting hoses or servicing tools, isolate and release the pressure.
• Locate compressors where their exhaust does not enter excavations, basements or confined spaces (Section 6.4).

Guarding, isolation and lock-out

Guarding

• Use fixed guards where access is not needed, and interlocked guards where frequent access is needed.
• Cover power take-offs, belts, chains, gears and rotating shafts on mixers, pumps, generators, bar cutters and benders.
• Never remove, bypass or defeat a guard. Doing so is an offence under section 25 of OSHA ("interfere with or misuse things provided in the interests of safety"), with a maximum penalty of RM20,000 or two years or both.

Isolation and lock-out/tag-out

1. Identify all energy sources: electrical, hydraulic, pneumatic, stored mechanical energy such as springs or raised loads, and gravity.
2. Stop the machine and isolate each source at its isolator.
3. Apply a personal lock and tag for each worker working on the machine.
4. Dissipate stored energy: lower raised parts, block them, bleed pressure.
5. Test that the machine is dead, by trying to start it, before work begins.
6. On completion, each worker removes their own lock only, after checking that guards are back and everyone is clear.

Inspection and maintenance

• Inspect: pre-use checks by operators, periodic inspections by a competent person at the manufacturer's intervals, and statutory inspections for plant requiring a certificate of fitness.
• Maintain: keep a maintenance log for each item of plant. The SSS can audit this when plant arrives on site, as part of the plant entry check.
• Plant entry check: before any plant enters the site, check:
  • the certificate of fitness, where required
  • the inspection and maintenance records
  • the safety devices (alarms, beacons, ROPS, seat belts)
  • the operator's training and authorisation
  • a site sticker showing it has passed

Scenario: the slewing excavator

A labourer guiding pipes into a trench is standing behind a tracked excavator inside its slew radius. The operator cannot see him. The quick-hitch indicator shows the bucket locking pin is not engaged, and the machine has no working reversing alarm. The SSS stops the work and:

1. Moves the labourer out of the slew radius and sets up a barrier to mark the exclusion zone. A banksman with radio contact replaces hand-guiding.
2. Has the quick-hitch locked and tested. The operator is retrained on the check, and the defect is recorded.
3. Takes the machine out of use until the alarm is repaired, through the plant entry and maintenance system.
4. Briefs the crew on slew-radius exclusion at a toolbox meeting.