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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Understanding Safety Functions: the start/restart function

Car engine start/stop button

After the safety-related stopping and the reset functions, the start/restart function is the next most common. Without a start/restart function, there is no way to make the machine do what it’s supposed to do. If you’re designing a machine control system, you need to understand this function.

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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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Instructions for Use – the New ISO 20607

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 product features are badly described, and information on features, settings and hazards may be absent. All of this despite the fact that the minimum…

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