Machinery Safety 101
9 June, 2020

ISO/DIS 13849 – 1 Available for Public Review

by Doug Nix
in Canada, Control Functions, EU European Union, Functional Safety, International, Standards
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… 

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23 May, 2019

Force and injury — How hard is too hard? ISO/TR 21260 will help

by Doug Nix
in Hierarchy of Controls, Inherently Safe Design, Robotics, Standards /
5 Comments
ISO/TS 15066 body model
This entry is part 5 of 5 in the series Hier­archy of Controls

Force rep­res­ents the mech­an­ic­al energy that causes injury to the human body. ISO/TC 199 has been work­ing on answer­ing that ques­tion since 2012.

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22 May, 2019

Instructions for Use – the New ISO 20607

by Doug Nix
in Canada, CE Mark, EU European Union, General, Hierarchy of Controls, Information for Use, International, Robotics, Standards, USA

Instruc­tions are one of the basic items that users expect to get when they pur­chase a product, and yet these import­ant doc­u­ments are often poorly writ­ten, badly trans­lated, and incom­plete. Key… 

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25 April, 2019

More E‑Stop Questions

by Doug Nix
in Canada, Control Functions, Emergency Stop, EU European Union, Standards, USA /
10 Comments
This entry is part 17 of 16 in the series Emer­gency Stop

Here are some more ques­tions I’ve been asked regard­ing emer­gency stop require­ments. These ones came to me through the IEEE PSES EMC-PSTC Product Com­pli­ance For­um mail­ing list. Primary Sources There… 

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4 April, 2019

Introduction to Functional Safety Seminars

by Doug Nix
in Complementary Protective Measures, Control Functions, Emergency Stop, Events, Free Talks, Functional Safety, Guards and Guarding, Interlocks, Interlocks, ISO 13849, Seminars, Standards, Training
Man training a group of people, pointing to Functional Safety topics on the whiteboard

If you are inter­ested in func­tion­al safety, and I know many read­ers are based on the stat­ist­ics I see for my oth­er func­tion­al safety-related posts, I think you will be inter­ested in this.… 

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21 August, 2018

5 Things You Need to Know About ANSI

by Doug Nix
in Standards, USA

Have you ever wondered about ANSI? Needed to know how ANSI stand­ards are developed? Find your answers and more in this post!

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15 May, 2018

Five reasons you should attend our Free Safety Talks

by Doug Nix
in Events, Free Talks, Functional Safety, Hazardous Energy Control Procedures, Interlocks, Interlocks, ISO 13849, Lockout, News, Ontario, Pre-Start Health and Safety Reviews, Standards
Banner for the 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… 

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11 September, 2017

Machinery Safety Labels: 3 Top Tools for Effective Warnings

by Doug Nix
in Canada, CE Mark, EU European Union, Hazard Warnings, Hierarchy of Controls, Information for Use, International, Standards, USA
Safety label by Clarion Safety Systems
This entry is part 1 of 3 in the series Safety Labels

Machinery Safety Labels The third level of the Hier­archy of Con­trols is Inform­a­tion for Use. Safety Labels are a key part of the Inform­a­tion for Use provided by machine build­ers to… 

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26 June, 2017

ISO 13849 – 1 Analysis — Part 8: Fault Exclusion

by Doug Nix
in Canada, CE Mark, Control Functions, Control Reliability, Emergency Stop, EU Robotics, Functional Safety, How to, Interlocks, International Robotics, ISO 13849, North American Robotics, Robotics, Standards
This entry is part 9 of 9 in the series How to do a 13849 – 1 analysis

Post updated 2019-07-24. Ed. Fault Con­sid­er­a­tion & Fault Exclu­sion ISO 13849 – 1, Chapter 7 [1, 7] dis­cusses the need for fault con­sid­er­a­tion and fault exclu­sion. Fault con­sid­er­a­tion is the pro­cess of examin­ing the… 

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18 June, 2017

ISO 13849 – 1 Analysis — Part 7: Safety-Related Software

by Doug Nix
in Canada, Complementary Protective Measures, Control Functions, Control Reliability, EU European Union, Functional Safety, How to, Interlocks, ISO 13849, Standards
General architecture model of software
This entry is part 7 of 9 in the series How to do a 13849 – 1 analysis

Post updated 2019-07-24. Ed. Safety-Related Soft­ware Up to this point, I have been dis­cuss­ing the basic pro­cesses used for the design of safety-related parts of con­trol sys­tems. The under­ly­ing assump­tion is… 

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