Inspection Detail

Inspection: 125947549 - Kraft Foods

Inspection Information - Office: Santa Ana District Office

Investigation Summary

On May 14, 2006, Employee #1 was repairing a machine, a Tray Sealer in assembly line Number 2. This machine is manufactured by Mahaffy-Hardy Company. Small individual lunch size trays, filled with food items, are placed manually on a conveyor going into this machine. A plastic film is fed from a roll, which the machine presses onto a row of trays to seal the trays after replacing the air in the trays with an inert gas. Then the machine trims the plastic film sealed on the trays and checks the seals on the individual trays, which then move out of the machine on the conveyor. The moving parts of this machine are completely enclosed with interlocked plexiglas doors. During set up or repair operations, these interlocks can be overridden by a key. Employee #1 finished making some repairs to this machine and was setting up the plastic film, which requires the sheet to weave through various parts of the machine. Employee #1 was operating this machine with open plexiglas doors by overriding the interlocks. The plastic film was not feeding properly through the seal checking unit. He tried to push the leading edge of the film under the seal checking unit with his left hand. The unit cycled and caught his left ring and middle finger. Employee #1 lost approximately 0.75-in. of his left ring finger and a small tip of his left middle finger. He was hospitalized.

Keywords: MAINTENANCE, AMPUTATED, FINGER, CAUGHT BY, LOCKOUT, CAUGHT BETWEEN, STRUCK BY, SET UP, UNGUARDED