Every year thousands of workers in the US are injured because equipment safety guards are either missing or incorrectly installed.
As part of your due diligence study, a quick tour of the factory will reveal a lot if you know what to look for.
Rotating equipment such as motors and gearboxes are easy items to check. All too often a maintenance operation is left incomplete because the equipment guard was not reinstalled. The equipment is put back into service, but without the safety guard, the situation is ripe for a serious accident.
Equipment guarding is not usually expensive and in most cases it is an easy fix. Loss of life or limb from unguarded equipment is always serious and can never be fixed.
Don’t buy a business that has pre-existing OSHA violations. As part of your acquisition due diligence, ask Chemvalon to provide an assessment of the state of equipment guarding and the likely cost to remediate the problem.
Chemvalon provides operational due diligence services to Private Equity investors.
