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.

Digiprove sealCopy­right secured by Digiprove © 2018
Acknowl­edge­ments: Kar­tik Vashi, ISO, Franklin Empire, S more…
Some Rights Reserved

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!