Category: News

Five reasons you should attend our Free Safety Talks

Reason #1 – Free Safety Talks

You can’t argue with Free Stuff! Last week we partnered with Schmersal Canada and Frank­lin Empire to put on three days of Free Safety Talks. We had full houses in all three loc­a­tions, Wind­sor, Lon­don and Cam­bridge, with nearly 60 people par­ti­cip­at­ing.

We had two great presenters who helped people under­stand Pre-Start Health and Safety Reviews (PSRs) [1], CSA Z432-2016 [2], Inter­lock­ing Devices [3] and Fault Mask­ing [4].

Mr Vashi at Franklin Empire Cambridge
Mr Vashi at Frank­lin Empire Cam­bridge

Frank­lin Empire provided us with some great facil­it­ies and break­fast to keep our minds work­ing. Thanks, Frank­lin Empire and Ben Reid who organ­ized all of the regis­tra­tions!

Mr Nix discussing injury rates in machine modes of operation
Mr Nix dis­cuss­ing injury rates in machine modes of oper­a­tion

Reason #2 – Understanding Interlocking Devices

A portrait of Mr Kartik Vashi
Mr Kartik Vashi, CFSE

Mr Kartik Vashi, CFSE, dis­cussed the ISO Inter­lock­ing Device stand­ard, ISO 14119. This stand­ard provides read­ers with guid­ance in the selec­tion and applic­a­tion of inter­lock­ing devices, includ­ing the four types of inter­lock­ing devices and the vari­ous cod­ing options for each type. Did you know that ISO 14119 is also dir­ectly ref­er­enced in CSA Z432-16 [2]? That means this stand­ard is applic­able to machinery built and used in Canada as of 2016. If you don’t know what I’m talk­ing about, you can con­tact Mr Vashi to get more inform­a­tion.

ISO 14119 Fig 2 showing some aspects of different types of interlocking devices.
ISO 14119 Fig 2 show­ing some aspects of dif­fer­ent types of inter­lock­ing devices [3]

Reason #3 – Understanding Fault Masking

Mr Vashi also talked about fault mask­ing, an import­ant and often mis­un­der­stood situ­ation that can occur when inter­lock­ing devices or oth­er elec­tromech­an­ic­al devices, like emer­gency stop but­tons, are daisy-chained into a single safety relay or safety input on a safety PLC. Mr Vashi drew from ISO/TR 24119 to help explain this phe­nomen­on. If you don’t under­stand the impact that daisy-chain­ing inter­lock­ing devices can have on the reli­ab­il­ity of your inter­lock­ing sys­tems, Mr Vashi can help you get a handle on this top­ic.

A part of ISO 24119 Fig 2 showing one method of daisy-chaining interlocking devices.
A part of ISO 24119 Fig 2 show­ing one com­mon meth­od of daisy-chain­ing inter­lock­ing devices [4]

Reason # 4 – Pre-Start Health and Safety Reviews

Portrait of Doug Nix, C.E.T.
Mr Doug Nix, C.E.T.

Mr Nix opened his present­a­tion with a dis­cus­sion of some com­monly asked ques­tions about Pre-Start Health and Safety Reviews (PSRs). There are many ways that people become con­fused about the WHY, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, WHO and HOW of PSRs, and Mr Nix covered them all. This unique-to-Ontario pro­cess requires an employ­er to have machines, equip­ment, rack­ing and pro­cesses reviewed by a Pro­fes­sion­al Engin­eer or anoth­er Qual­i­fied Per­son when cer­tain cir­cum­stances exist (see O. Reg. 851, Sec­tion 7 Table). If you are con­fused by the PSR require­ments, con­tact Mr Nix for help with your ques­tions.

Reason #5 – Understanding the changes to CSA Z432

CSA Z432 [2] was updated in 2016 with many changes. This much-needed update came after 12 years exper­i­ence with the 2004 edi­tion and many changes in machinery safety tech­no­logy. Mr Nix briefly explored the many changes that were brought to Cana­dian machine build­ers in the new edi­tion, includ­ing the many new ref­er­ences to ISO and IEC stand­ards. These new ref­er­ences will help European machine build­ers get their products accep­ted in Cana­dian mar­kets. Both Mr Vashi and Mr Nix sit on the CSA Tech­nic­al Com­mit­tee respons­ible for CSA Z432.

Reason #6 – Hot Questions

We like to over-deliv­er, so here’s the bonus reas­on!

We had some great ques­tions posed by our attendees, two of which we are answer­ing in video posts this week. If you have ever con­sidered using a pro­gram­mable safety sys­tem for lock­out, our first video explains why this is not yet a pos­sib­il­ity. Mr Nix gets into some of the reli­ab­il­ity con­sid­er­a­tions behind the O.Reg. 851 Sec­tions 75 and 76 and CSA Z460 require­ments.

Mr Nix pos­ted a second video dis­cuss­ing ISO 13849 – 1 [5] Cat­egory 2 archi­tec­ture require­ments and par­tic­u­larly Test­ing Inter­vals. This video explains why it is not pos­sible to meet the test­ing require­ments using a purely elec­tromech­an­ic­al design solu­tion.

Edit: 16-May-18

A case in the UK illus­trates the dangers of bypassing inter­lock­ing sys­tems. A work­er was killed by a con­vey­or sys­tem in a pre-cast con­crete plant when he was work­ing in an area nor­mally pro­tec­ted by a key-exchange sys­tem. Here’s the link to the art­icle on OHSOnline.com. Allow­ing work­ers into the danger zone of a machine without oth­er effect­ive risk reduc­tion meas­ures may be a death sen­tence.

References

[1]     Ontario Reg­u­la­tion 851, Indus­tri­al Estab­lish­ments

[2]     Safe­guard­ing of Machinery. CSA Z432. 2016.

[3]     Safety of machinery – Inter­lock­ing devices asso­ci­ated with guards – Prin­ciples for design and selec­tion. ISO 14119. 2013.

[4]     Safety of machinery – Eval­u­ation of fault mask­ing seri­al con­nec­tion of inter­lock­ing devices asso­ci­ated with guards with poten­tial free con­tacts. ISO/TR 24119. 2015.

[5]     Con­trol of haz­ard­ous energy – Lock­out and oth­er meth­ods. CSA Z460. 2013.

[6]     Safety of machinery — Safety-related parts of con­trol sys­tems — Part 1: Gen­er­al prin­ciples for design. ISO 13849 – 1. 2015.

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Acknow­ledge­ments: Kartik Vashi, ISO, Frank­lin Empire, S more…
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Brexit is such a waste

This morn­ing I read news of the tests that the May Gov­ern­ment plans to use when assess­ing the Brexit deal they are try­ing to nego­ti­ate with the EU.

If you scroll down through the tests you will dis­cov­er that the UK really doesn’t want any­thing to change, includ­ing CE Mark­ing, a fun­da­ment­al part of the EU Single Mar­ket. Don­ald Tusk has made it very clear that the UK will not have access to the single mar­ket after Brexit, so the items relat­ing to reg­u­lat­ory har­mon­isa­tion are traps that will almost cer­tainly cause rejec­tion of the deal.

Fur­ther down, you will also see that May does not want to lose the free­dom of move­ment of people or money. If you know any­thing about the EU, you prob­ably know that the three pil­lars of the EU are the free­dom of move­ment of:

  • People
  • Goods
  • Cap­it­al

The tests show that the UK hopes to keep all of these, which begs the ques­tion, why leave at all? The UK already has all the items in the tests as a mem­ber of the EU. These are gran­ted as part of mem­ber­ship. The costs asso­ci­ated with main­tain­ing this charade are astro­nom­ic­al while stay­ing in the uni­on provides sig­ni­fic­ant bene­fits and rel­at­ively few costs.

Isn’t it time for Prime Min­is­ter May and her gov­ern­ment to give up this game and admit that Brexit is a bad deal for the UK, and that con­tin­ued mem­ber­ship is the best way for­ward?

CETA in force!

CETA comes into force today, 21-Sep-2017

If you are unfa­mil­i­ar with CETA, the Com­pre­hens­ive Eco­nom­ic and Trade Agree­ment, this ground­break­ing trade agree­ment between Canada and the European Uni­on will be a game-changer for Canada. Until today, the actu­al date for imple­ment­a­tion of the agree­ment has been a mov­ing tar­get. There were at least two pre­vi­ous dates announced by the Cana­dian gov­ern­ment, but each time the dates passed without the agree­ment com­ing into force due to issues that needed to be resolved.

So what does this mean for Cana­dians? As of today, 98% of Cana­dian products can now enter into the EU tar­iff-free. With­in two years, 99% of products will be tar­iff-free. The agree­ment embod­ies much of what the EU sys­tem is based upon: Four pil­lars of free­dom are entrenched in the agree­ment.

The Four Pil­lars include the free­dom of move­ment of people, goods, ser­vices and cap­it­al. This philo­sophy has brought sig­ni­fic­ant prosper­ity and free­dom to European cit­izens. With­in the“Schengen Area”, EU cit­izens can move freely across nation­al bor­ders without passing through cus­toms, in a very sim­il­ar way to Cana­dians mov­ing from Province to Province. EU cit­izens can work in any Schen­gen coun­try without the need for work­ing visas or cit­izen­ship in the new coun­try they have chosen. Sim­il­ar freedoms exist for goods, ser­vices and money.

Under CETA, sim­il­ar freedoms are avail­able to Cana­dians, although with some restric­tions since CETA does not mean that Canada is now an EU Mem­ber State. Goods can flow from Canada to the EU, and from the EU to Canada without tar­iff restric­tions, except in some lim­ited cases. Busi­nesses who want to set up oper­a­tions in the EU can do this with lim­ited restric­tions, and Cana­dian pro­fes­sion­al work­ers can move to the EU to staff these new oper­a­tions without the need for restrict­ive work visas. Invest­ment in EU oper­a­tions has gained pro­tec­tions through EU law so that these invest­ments are bet­ter pro­tec­ted. Cana­dian ser­vice busi­nesses can now provide their ser­vice products to EU cus­tom­ers with little restric­tion. Cana­dian busi­ness now has free access to a mar­ket­place of 500 mil­lion new cus­tom­ers, nearly 14 times lar­ger than the Cana­dian mar­ket. The EU mar­ket is worth nearly €2.4 tril­lion in exports alone. This is an oppor­tun­ity Cana­dians can’t afford to miss.

With the instabil­ity being cre­ated by the cur­rent US admin­is­tra­tion and the bully tac­tics that are being used to force the rene­go­ti­ation of NAFTA, Cana­dian busi­ness should take the oppor­tun­ity presen­ted to us today to turn our eyes to the EU, a uni­on of coun­tries who are open and friendly to Cana­dians. People who want to work with us, who want our products and ser­vices. Many Cana­dians sup­port scrap­ping NAFTA if key pro­vi­sions can’t be met.

For more inform­a­tion on CETA and what it will mean for Cana­dians, please see Doing Busi­ness in Europe — CETA: Canada and the European Uni­on Ush­er In a New Era of Trade.

21-Septem­ber-2017 is a day to cel­eb­rate. The future looks bright!