โŒ ISO 13849-1:2023 โ€“ Do Not Use โŒ

This is a first On Thursday, 2023-04-27, ISO published ISO 13849-1:2023, the 4th edition of the dominant functional safety standard for machinery. Usually, I would be the first to tell you that you should buy the standard as quickly as possible and start using it immediately. Today is not a normal day. As Command Module…

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Understanding safety functions: Safe speed and safe standstill

A red sign with white block letters reading "reduce speed."

In this post, I’ll discuss two safety-related parameters: safe speed and safe standstill. Speed control is a very common machine function. Conveyors, mixers, pumps, and many other applications rely on variable-speed drives. Some speed parameters are also safety-related because variations in speed can increase the risk to workers. See this post for more information on…

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What is risk assessment?

Risk assessment began as a discipline in the late 1960s, with some of the earliest formal papers published in the early 1970s [1] and [2]. The early researchers were part of the US military and were interested in reducing the risks for military personnel carrying out their duties.

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Conveyor System Safety

Processing of waste electrical and electronic materials

If you design, integrate or use conveyors in your operation, you should have a solid grasp on the basic safety requirements for conveyor systems. This article will get you up to speed on everything you need to know!?

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ISO/DIS 13849-1 Available for Public Review

Decision tree used to determine PL based on risk parameters.

Update 2020-10-11: The next three-day ISO/TC 199/WG8 meeting runs Tuesday-Thursday this week. Our committee members will be wading into the next 1 600 comments along with expert members from around the world. We’ll update you again as the changes get closer. Update 2020-09-29: Over 1 920 (!!) comments were received by the committee during the…

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