Regulations and standards for machine safety

Machine safety in the EU In the European Union, Machine Regulation 98/37/EC con- tains general safety requirements for products. HarmonisedEN standards describe safety requirements for products indetail. If these standards are observed, the related safety goals are regarded as fulfilled by the manufacturer or impor-ter. The EU regulations with their harmonised standards inaddition supplementary information is always up to date and available online at http://www Different areas and countries in the world have differing con-cepts of work safety and machine safety. In addition to diffe- rences in requirements and an evaluation of safety concepts, there are also differences in responsibilities and legal conse- quences. The laws and regulatory mechanisms of the country in which the machine is operated are always definitive, even if the machine was built in another country. The following sum- maries are intended as an introductory overview to the sub- ject and in no way relieve the reader of the responsibility tostudy the matter more thoroughly or to observe whateverregional requirements may apply. ANSI/RIA R15.06, for example. NFPA 79 contains basic requi-rements for electrical outfitting of industrial machines. In Canada as well, each province has its own safety require- ments. An example of material relevant for machine safety is ”Regulation 7“ of the ”Regulations for Industrial Establish- ments“ of the Province of Ontario. Additional information is available at www .csa.ca . Machine safety in Japan In contrast to Europe and North America, there is no legal requirement in Japan to use standards. There is, however, anapplication recommendation of the ”Japanese Industrial Stan-dards“ (JIS). Japan is currently in the process of adopting a set of basic standards based on the European system ofstandards as their national standards. Example of this are TRB 0008 (EN 292-1), TR B 0009 (EN 292-2), and JIS B 9705-1 (EN 954-1). Machine safety in the People's Republic of China The first general basis for work safety in the People's Repu- blic of China took effect on November 1, 2002, the Law onSafety in Production. It requires employers to maintain techni-cal production standards and an appropriate level of safety management. International standards for safe machines The international standard for the safety of machines ISO12100-1 (EN 292) describes the possible sources of dangerfor a machine and contains principles for designing systems to reduce risk. The goal is to construct safe machines with aresidual risk that remains below the acceptable limit. To eva-luate the risk for any type of danger, a risk evaluation should be performed as described in ISO 14121 (EN 1050). If hazar- dous places on the machine are discovered during this analy-sis that cannot be avoided by design measures, then safetyequipment must be used, for example protective grids or optoelectronic safety equipment to reduce the risk. .newappr oach.or g. The Euro-pean body of standards is divided into basic standards A (for example EN 292, EN 1050), standards for higher-level safetyaspects and safety equipment B (EN 294, EN 349, EN 954,EN 60204-1, EN 1088) and machine-specific standards of Class C (EN 692, EN 693 etc.).The operator of the machine (i.e. the owner) is responsible forobserving work protection requirements. The general regula- tion “Safety and health protection for Employees“89/391/ECC specifies the minimum requirements for safety onthe job in the EU. Country-specific work protection laws may exceed minimum requirements. Machine safety in North America There is no uniform federal legislation in the USA on machine safety that consistently regulates what the responsibilities ofmanufacturers or suppliers are. In spite of regional and localdifferences, however, the basic principle applies that employ- ers must ensure safety on the job (Occupational Safety andHealth Act OSHA, 1970). Inspectors of the government agen-cy with the same name verify whether workplaces meet the applicable requirements. OSHA regulations 29 CFR 1910 con-tain general requirements. OSHA 1910.217, for example,contains specific requirements for power-operated mechani- cal presses. More information is available at www .osha.gov . In addition to OSHA regulations, thanks to product liability in force in the USA for machine manufacturers and operators, itis a very good idea in indeed to be at the state of the art andobserve the standards of the two relevant organisations, ANSI (www .ansi.or g ) and NFPA (www .nfpa.or g ). In the area ofmachine safety, series ANSI B11 should be mentioned at thispoint. Safety regulations for industrial robot systems may be found in

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