Developing an enterprise wide approach to winder safeguarding

Winders are hazardous machines. They require operator contact between each set of rolls, for threading, re-filling the unwind stand and inserting cores. New winders are fully automated with designed-in safeguards. However, most operating winders are legacy machines requiring much manual intervention and do not have as many designed-in safety devices as new machines. The winder is usually the first job for entry level operators. Because of the frequent exposure to hazards, and the newness of the operators, injuries are more likely at the winders and roll finishing than in other paper mill areas. In addition to many different winder designs and vintages, mills have independently developed approaches to address these hazards which are not always coordinated among mills. This paper describes an enterprise wide approach for addressing winder safety. Roll finishing safety will not be included in this paper.