Conveyor Safety: What ASME B20.1 and OSHA Actually Require

There is no single OSHA rule written for conveyors in general industry. Conveyor safety is argued from a consensus standard and two federal rules at once.

When a plant asks whether a conveyor line is OSHA compliant, the honest answer starts with a correction. OSHA's general industry rules do not include a stand-alone conveyor standard. Conveyor hazards are handled mainly through the general machine guarding rule and the lockout/tagout rule, and the standard most of the industry designs to is ASME B20.1.

The short version

ASME B20.1 is the safety standard for conveyors and related equipment. It is a consensus standard published by ASME, not a federal regulation. OSHA enforces its own regulations, and on a conveyor the two it reaches for most are 29 CFR 1910.212 (machine guarding) and 29 CFR 1910.147 (control of hazardous energy, or lockout/tagout).

What ASME B20.1 covers

The current edition is ASME B20.1-2024. ASME describes it as applying to the design, construction, installation, maintenance, inspection, and operation of conveyors and conveying systems in relation to hazards.

It covers bulk material, package, and unit handling conveyors, whether installed for permanent, temporary, or portable operation. It does not cover conveyors designed or used primarily to move people.

That scope matters. B20.1 is not only a design document. It also speaks to how a conveyor is installed, maintained, and operated, which is where most of the day to day risk sits.

What OSHA actually cites

The general machine guarding rule, 1910.212(a)(1), reads: “One or more methods of machine guarding shall be provided to protect the operator and other employees in the machine area from hazards such as those created by point of operation, ingoing nip points, rotating parts, flying chips and sparks.”

On a conveyor, ingoing nip points are everywhere a belt meets a pulley or a chain meets a sprocket. The same rule says guards shall be affixed to the machine where possible, and that a guard “shall be such that it does not offer an accident hazard in itself.”

Drive components such as belts, pulleys, chains and sprockets also fall under 1910.219, the rule for mechanical power transmission apparatus.

Clearing a jam counts as servicing

Under 1910.147, servicing and maintenance includes the “cleaning or unjamming of machines or equipment.” Normal production operations are outside the rule. The exception for minor servicing during production applies only when the task is routine, repetitive, and integral to using the equipment for production, and only when alternative measures give effective protection.

Where the rule applies, energy control procedures must be “developed, documented and utilized,” and the employer must “conduct a periodic inspection of the energy control procedure at least annually.”

These are not obscure rules. In OSHA's final data for fiscal year 2025, lockout/tagout ranked fourth among the most cited standards with 2,562 violations, and machine guarding ranked tenth with 1,498, as reported by Safety+Health. On OSHA's preliminary list for fiscal year 2026, lockout/tagout is third and machine guarding is tenth.

What to settle before the conveyor is built

Most of these questions are cheaper to answer on a drawing than after installation.

• Where is every nip point, and how is each one guarded?
• Where are the emergency stops, and what does each one stop?
• How is each section isolated for lockout? That includes the electrical disconnect and any air, gravity or stored energy in the system.
• How will jams be cleared, and can the most common one be designed out with access points or controls?
• What documentation will you receive to write your own lockout procedures from?

Where System Technology fits

System Technology designs and builds conveyors and the control panels that run them, in Joliet, Illinois. Because the conveyor and the controls come from the same team, guarding, stops and disconnects can be planned together instead of handed off between vendors. If you are planning a line, we are happy to walk through these questions with you.