Working together to advance safety

It was on New Year's Eve last year that we bade farewell to EN 954-1 and said hello to EN ISO 13849-1; we also welcomed the 'Machinery Safety Alliance', a group of machinery safety experts intent on helping users make sense of safety

The non-profit Machinery Safety Alliance comprises Festo, Fortress Interlocks, Pilz Automation Technology, Troax, UK Engineering, and Werma, each providing expertise from its own field to help machine builders and users make sense of safety while safeguarding productivity.

With the withdrawal of EN 954-1 (which up until the end of 2011 provided presumption of conformity to the Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC), EN ISO 13849 is set to become the most widely used standard for the design, verification and validation of safety related parts of control systems.

EN ISO 13849-1 states that electromechanical, non-electrical (for example hydraulic, pneumatic, mechanical), complex electronic (programmable) and combinations of all these technologies are within its scope. Any component within the realms of these technologies can play a part in safety with the proviso that reliability data (in the form of a B10d, MTTFd or PFH) can be found for it. In addition to components which contribute to functional safety, other components essential in machinery safety include guards (such as perimeter fences, sliding and hinge gates) and signalling devices (such as beacons and sounders).

Collectively, as suppliers of safety components and systems (pneumatics, trapped key, key exchange, solenoid locks, interlock switches, safety relays, safety PLCs, non-contact switches, RFID switches, light curtains, safe 3D vision, safe automation, safe motion, guard systems, signalling) the members of the Machinery Safety Alliance have committed to providing shared knowledge of these technologies in accordance with what will become the de facto functional safety standard and other relevant standards.

David Collier of Pilz Automation says: "No single vendor or even integrator has all of these collective technologies, attendant technical support, manufacturing and application experience under one roof.

Machine safety compliance has opened up to more technologies with the slow introduction of EN ISO 13849, and there is still a learning curve for builders, users and even some component suppliers to go through with it. Added to this it takes a great deal of experience and engineering insight to strike a balance between safety compliance, ergonomics, productivity, resistance to manipulation (overriding) and cost.

"As a group, our mission is to make sense of safety and to safeguard UK productivity by providing practical, up-to-date knowledge of the legislation, the best selection of available technologies, the best application advice for these technologies, all the reliability data as required, a collective experience spanning virtually all of industry, opportunities for training, consultation, engineering service and a single place to be contacted." The Machinery Safety Alliance has a web portal (http://www.machinery-safetyalliance.

co.uk) and is hosting a series of seminars at various venues around the UK.

The focus of the seminars will be on the realworld application of various technologies, and the application of EN ISO 13849-1 as well as other safety-relevant standards (such as EN ISO 12100:2010 for general risk assessment and risk reduction, EN 13857 for safe distances, and others). A member of the Health and Safety Laboratory will open the event with his perspective on machine safety.

Richard Brooks has worked previously in compliance services and as a machine builder, so brings with him three different perspectives of machine safety (enforcement, compliance and engineering).

Visitors to the website will be able to book places at the seminars, which will be held at venues of special interest to engineers: 27th June, Manchester Concorde Conference Centre 5th September, Bristol Explore@Bristol Centre Readers can also subscribe to a regular newsletter addressing the wide gamut of topics in machine safety today.

David Collier concludes: "We really think we can be stronger than the sum of our parts, and help to boost understanding of machinery safety in the UK. Not only do we offer diverse technology expertise, but a wide range of experience across all industry sectors."