Plant & Machinery Safety Zone debuts at Health & Safety '10 North

New for Health & Safety '10 North is the launch of a dedicated Plant & Machinery Safety Zone which aims to help those with responsibilities in this area stay abreast of the latest related legislation and innovations

Plant and machinery safety is a specialist area with those involved having to use knowledge of electrical and mechanical engineering, as well as needing to stay abreast of legislative developments such as the new Machinery Safety Directive. To this end general health and safety events don't really meet the needs of the engineer, as endless exhibition stands with safety gloves on them are not that much help when trying to fit a laser scanner on a robot manufacturing cell. For those seeking specialist education, consultancy, hardware and software the new 'Plant & Machinery Safety Zone' has been added to Health & Safety '10 - North.

Sponsored by the Laidler Group, one of the UK's leading machinery safety and compliance consultants the new 'Plant and Machinery Safety Zone' will take place at the Reebok Stadium in Bolton on 13-14th October 2010.

The biggest most recognisable names in the specialist field of machinery safety are taking part in the zone alongside Laidler Associates and sister Group company Safety Systems Technology. Wieland Electric - a leader in the field of pluggable connections for building system technology and industrial automation; Rockwell Automation - provider of power, control and information systems and services; sensor manufacturer and supplier SICK UK and aluminium profiles and modular building components supplier Minitec UK. Plus, these companies have recently been joined by Pilz and Siemens.

Free educational seminars Education is a major part of the zone's offering and there will be a dedicated stream of free educational seminars running throughout the two days of the event. Rockwell Automation will demonstrate how the safety standards are changing, clarifying what the new EU Directive means and how you can protect your personnel and machinery from everyday risk without adversely affecting productivity, to meet safety goals and help protect people, machines, processes and the environment. The presentation will also run through the use of SISTEMA - a software tool used for the evaluation of applications to ISO 13849-1.

Laidler Associates, will give a presentation on Practical machinery safety including guarding issues. Using its virtual reality system to re-create a typical working environment Laidler is able to bring to life the problems that are present and demonstrate how to provide safe solutions. Focusing on the practical, Laidler will also demonstrate how to complete and document a PUWER 98 (Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 98) assessment or CE Marking to the Machinery and Low Voltage Directives. The presentation will also cover the requirements of EN 62061 and the new Machinery Directive, 2006/42/EC in this regard.

Latest technology As well as education, visitors will also be able to discuss the latest technology, both hardware and software, with the experts from the respective companies. Safety Systems Technology, for example, is a machinery safety design and installation specialist not tied to any single safety product vendor, enabling it to design and install a best of breed solution.

New technology will be available with companies such as SICK (UK) launching its new software upgrade for its intuitive Flexi Soft Controller. The new version of the Flexi Soft Designer Software, Designer v1.3 enables the connection of up to four Flexi Soft Controllers up to 100m, in series, with an online view of the set up.

The addition of the Plant & Machinery Safety Zone to Health and Safety '10 - North means that the event has more content than ever before for machine builders, system integrators and consultants as well as engineers from virtually any industry and at any level, not just health and safety professionals.