February 27, 2014 – Nichiha USA Inc. has been cited by the U.S.’s Occupational Safety & Health Administration for, among other things, simply “not taking the necessary steps to protect its workers by ensuring machinery is properly locked out and deenergized before employees perform maintenance and cleaning”.

The citation follows a September 2013 inspection (prompted by a compliant) at the company’s manufacturing facility in Macon, Ga. The proposed penalties total $138,600.

The repeat violations include failing to provide workers with training to understand the purpose and function of the energy control program when performing servicing and maintenance on equipment, and not using a group lockout procedure for each worker to prevent equipment startup.

This employer has been inspected several times since 2009, and has been put into OSHA’s Severe Violator Enforcement Program.