May 2026 Volume 8

SAFETY

There is also a less visible cost: instability. Processes that rely on manual intervention in high-risk areas tend to be less predictable. Variability increases. Scrap rises. Throughput fluctuates. What begins as a safety issue often shows up elsewhere in quality, in scheduling, and in overall operational performance. Automation is often viewed first through the lens of capital cost. That’s totally fair. Nobody said it was cheap. But the comparison is rarely made against the full cost of operating with persistent risk. We all know automation is expensive. There’s no denying that. But are instability, scrap, and workplace injuries cheaper? Near Misses and the Hidden Safety Signal They’re often brushed off because nothing happened. That’s the problem. In forging environments, near misses can include dropped billets, misaligned parts, or unexpected equipment movement that is corrected just in time. These are events that expose the same hazards responsible for serious injuries, just without the outcome… yet. Safety professionals increasingly treat near misses as what they are: warnings. Not anomalies, not close calls, but indicators that the process is one step away from failure. Automation doesn’t manage those moments. It removes them. By eliminating manual handling and introducing systems that detect and respond to abnormal conditions, it reduces how often a worker is placed in a position where something can go wrong. Near misses don’t disappear by accident. They disappear when the process stops creating them. The Future of Safety in Forging The forging industry has always evolved alongside advances in equipment design. From early mechanical hammers to modern hydraulic and servo presses, each generation of technology has improved not only productivity but also safety. Automation represents the next step in that evolution. Robotics, machine vision systems, and advanced process monitoring technologies are enabling forging operations where workers supervise processes rather than physically interact with hazardous equipment. This shift does not eliminate the challenges of forging environments, but it changes the nature of those challenges. “The goal isn’t to automate everything,” says Fernandes. “It’s to remove the moments where people are exposed to unnecessary risk. That’s where the real impact is.” The strongest forging operations in the future will not simply rely on procedures and vigilance to manage risk. They will increasingly design processes where the highest-risk interactions are engineered out of the workflow entirely. In that sense, automation is no longer a forward-looking upgrade. It’s quickly becoming the baseline for what a safe forging operation looks like.

References: 1. Accident Summary Nr: 136211.015 - Employee amputates four fingers while operating trim press | OSHA Accident Investigation Report | May 2021 2. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Injuries, Illnesses, and Fatalities Program 3. “Using Lockout and Tagout Procedures to Prevent Injury and Death during Machine Maintenance” by National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health | June 2014 4. Safety Culture Threat: Production Pressure | Canadian Energy Regulator | 2023-02-09 5. Forklifts | NSC Injury Facts 6. OSHA Case #90265 | US Department of Labor 7. MIFACE INVESTIGATION: #03MI029 | Co-Owner of Metal Forge Shop Dies When an Ejected Piece of Steel Used as a Stop Block in a Full Revolution Press Strikes Him in the Chest 8. Forging Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic | National Employment Trends | ONet Online 9. 2024 Workplace Safety Index | Liberty Mutual

Katrina Geenevasen Marketing Manager Macrodyne Technologies Phone: 905-669-2253 extension 508 Email: kgeenevasen@MacrodynePress.com

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