The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) decided that 3M Company violated federal regulations leading to an employee death.
OSHA determined that 3M Company violated federal regulations for the control of hazardous energy during set-up, servicing and operation of the machine. The incident followed the company's assessment of equipment at its U.S. and Canadian plants in May 2022 after a fatality at a 3M facility in Alexandria, Minnesota, in February 2022.
Specifically, federal investigators found the company failed to use procedures for the control of hazardous energy and did not implement energy control application steps when employees set up the production line by threading through powered rollers by hand. They also determined the 3M plant allowed workers to circumvent machine guarding to cut and remove wrapped fibers from rotating powered rollers and to remove fibers from the floor, which exposed them to caught-in hazards.