Regular readers will be aware of the controversy that has surrounded the mandatory implementation of EN ISO 13849-1:2008, originally scheduled for 28-Dec-09. The EC Machinery Working Group met this week to review the opinions of European machinery experts. Following the meeting, it was announced that the mandatory implementation date will be extended by some time, however no date was given.
Some speculation exists about the length of the extension, with some sources saying that it could be as little as 12 months to as long as five years. Until the EC revises the dates and publishes them in the Official Journal we won’t have the ‘final word’, however we are hoping that an announcement will be made to clarify the decision and the date.
If you are a machine builder who has already implemented EN ISO 13849-1:2008 and the validation standard EN ISO 13849-2:2008, you are ahead of the game. Your efforts have not been wasted, as your systems already conform to the requirements that will eventually be mandatory for all machine builders. For those machine builders who have yet to implement these standards, you’ve gained a bit of a reprieve, but you will still be required to implement these standards eventually. If you have yet to begin implementation, now is the time.
I will post the new mandatory implementation dates as soon as this information is available.
