Inspection Detail

Inspection: 1476302.015 - Marley Spoon Inc.

Inspection Information - Office: Dallas Area Office

Investigation Summary

At 9:00 a.m. on May 18, 2020, an employee was working for a firm that prepared and delivered recipes and ingredients that the recipients cooked at home. She worked as a machine operator. She was operating the firm's Guangzhou Fuluke Machinery Co. model 500KG sauce repack machine. The machine mixed sauces and packaged them in quantities for inclusion in the meals it sent out. A package had jammed in the machine. The machine was still energized. It had three sources of energy: electrical energy (220 volts), pneumatic energy (100 psi), and the residual mechanical energy of the cutting and mixing blades after electrical energy had been turned off. The employee reached below the barrier guard to pull out the jammed package. Her left thumb became caught by a moving part. It was amputated. The employee was treated without hospitalization. The machine was not completely guarded, later measurements showed. The guarding for the point of operation was inadequate. The plastic adjustable guarding was not enclosed at the top and bottom, allowing employees to routinely bypass the plastic barrier guarding that was in place. As part of routine production, employees had to bypass the guard, because the food packaging cutters would not reach the plastic container as the packaging was cut. The employer provided employees with spatulas to reach under the plastic barrier guards to ensure that production continued. This occurred multiple times in a shift. On May 14, 2019, another employee had a similar incident on the firm's powder and paste repacking machine. In that incident, an employee bypassed the inadequate machine guarding at the top and bottom of the adjustable plastic guard.

Keywords: Amputated, Amputation, Blade, Caught By, Clearing, Cutting, Food Delivery Service, Food processing, Food service, Hand Tool, Instantaneous amputation, Jammed, Lockout, Lockout/Tagout, Machine Cycled, Machine Guarding, Misjudgment, Misjudgment of Hazardous Situation, Reach, Reaching, Thumb, Training, Traumatic Amputation, Unguarded, Work Rules