Making sense of machinery safety

On the first of January 2012 the machinery industry bid
farewell to the standard EN 954-1 and welcomed ENISO
13849. Helping machine users navigate these changes is
a collaboration between a group of machinery safety
experts. HSM finds out more

The “Machinery Safety Alliance” is
a new and non-profit
collaboration between 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, and to
safeguard their 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 will become
the most widely used standard for the
design, verification and validation of
safety related parts of control systems.

EN ISO 13849-1 clearly states that
electromechanical, non-electrical (e.g.

hydraulic, pneumatic, mechanical),
complex electronic (programmable) and
combinations of all the aforementioned
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).

Making collective know-how
more accessible
Collectively, as suppliers of safe
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 components and
systems 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.

“No single vendor or even integrator
has all of these collective technologies,
attendant technical support, manufacturing
and application experience under one roof.

UK industry needs an organisation which
can make this collective know-how more
readily accessible,” says David Collier of
Pilz Automation. “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”
He continues: “As a group, our mission
is to make sense of safety and to safeguard
UK productivity by providing practical and
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.”1

Online resources
The Machinery Safety Alliance launched
in January 2012 with a new web portal
and a series of seminars at various venues
around the UK. The seminars focus on
the real-world application of various
technologies, and the application of EN
ISO 13849-1 as well as other safetyrelevant
standards (such as EN 13857 for
safe distances and EN 60204-1 for the
electrical equipment of machines).

Users visiting the website will be able to
register and book places at the seminars,
which will be held at venues of special
interest to engineers. They will also be
able to reach the respective Alliance
members, keep up-to-date with news,
access and download technical articles.

“We really think we can be stronger
than the sum of our parts, and help to
boost understanding of machinery safety
in the UK” say David Collier. “Not only
do we offer diverse technology expertise,
but a wide range of experience across all
industry sectors including automated
production lines, automotive, aerospace,
building materials, electronics, food &
beverage, paper and board production
and conversion, power generation and
distribution, recycling, steel/aluminium
production and forming, and applications
such as packaging, material handling,
palletising, machine tools, as well as
process industries in accordance with IEC
61508 and EN 61511.”