Machinery Risk Assessment for Manufacturers
Machinery risk assessment for manufacturers is essential for ensuring equipment is safe, compliant, and suitable for use within busy production environments. At KnoxThomas, we provide specialist machinery safety and compliance support tailored to manufacturing sites using standalone machines, production lines, conveyors, presses, automated systems, and integrated work cells.
Manufacturers often work with machinery that is newly purchased, modified, imported, relocated, or already in operation across an established site. Our role is to help you identify hazards clearly, understand your legal responsibilities, and implement proportionate control measures that support both safety and productivity.
Supporting Safer Manufacturing Operations
Manufacturing businesses are under constant pressure to keep production moving while ensuring equipment remains safe and legally compliant. Machinery may be newly purchased, modified internally, relocated, integrated into a larger line, or adapted to meet changing production requirements. In each case, uncertainty around safety duties can create delays, risk, and avoidable cost.
A suitable assessment helps identify hazards such as crushing, trapping, cutting, entanglement, impact, electrical risk, pneumatic or hydraulic energy, unexpected start-up, access to danger zones, and foreseeable misuse. These risks need to be considered across normal production, set-up, cleaning, fault finding, maintenance, and intervention tasks.
KnoxThomas provides a structured, practical review that helps you understand what is compliant, what may need improvement, and what actions should be prioritised. We begin by understanding your machinery, intended use, operating environment, and how people interact with the equipment. From there, we review hazards, existing safeguards, operating modes, maintenance access, and supporting documentation.
For example, where a manufacturer has modified an existing machine or connected multiple machines into a production process, we can help determine whether the changes introduce new hazards, affect guarding or control systems, or create additional compliance obligations before the equipment is placed back into service.
Relevant legislation and standards may include the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998, the Supply of Machinery Regulations 2008, the Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC where applicable, CE/UKCA marking requirements, BS EN ISO 12100, BS EN ISO 13849, and BS EN ISO 14120.
Our goal is to give you clear, proportionate guidance so you can make informed decisions, reduce uncertainty, and move forward with confidence.
Our Support Services Cover:
01. Machinery Risk Assessment
We assess machinery hazards, existing safeguards, operator interaction, maintenance access, operating modes, and foreseeable misuse to identify where further controls may be required.
02. PUWER Compliance Support
Where machinery is new, imported, modified, or supplied, we help identify relevant CE/UKCA marking duties and applicable machinery legislation.
03. CE/UKCA and Market Legislation Review
Where machinery is new, imported, modified, or supplied, we help identify relevant CE/UKCA marking duties and applicable machinery legislation.
04. Standards and Gap Assessment
We review machinery against relevant standards and identify practical compliance gaps, helping you understand what needs to be addressed and why.
05. Technical Documentation Support
We assist with the documentation needed to evidence your approach, including risk assessments, compliance reviews, and supporting technical file information where applicable.
06. Practical Risk Reduction Guidance
We provide clear recommendations that help reduce risk while considering productivity, usability, maintenance access, operator behaviour, and your commercial requirements.
How we can help?
For a free initial consultation, simply book an appointment via our meeting system or fill out the contact form to email us. We aim to respond to all enquiries within 24 hours.
