Safety: Part of Machine Design

For machine builders, compliance with U.S., EN and IEC safety standards is becoming the de facto requirement for doing business, and safety now is designed in at the early stages, says Dave Collins, manager, machine safety products, at Schneider Electric (www.us.schneider-electric.com). "That offers less potential for untrained operators to tamper with the safety equipment," he thinks.

International standards organizations are cooperating more to develop consistent global guidelines for safeguarding machines. "Within European law, the supplier/machine builder has the responsibility to deliver new machines that are 'safety-inclusive,'" explains Juergen Bukowski, safety program manager, Sick (www.sick.com). "U.S. law requires employers/users to take their new or already-operated equipment and provide a hazard-free environment, which often means users have to design safety around it."

From a design standpoint, safety standards serve as an important guideline, explains Doug Meyer, solutions marketing manager, Yaskawa Electric America (www.yaskawa.com). "The standards replace much of the subjective interpretation about what is safe with objective criteria," he says.

Safety standards provide criteria for selecting the appropriate approved or certified components, agrees Eric Hollister, product sales engineer, Pilz (www.pilzusa.com). "They offer advice for the entire safety design process, from evaluating the overall risk of a machine or process through design, and all the way to implementation and validation," he says.

"Modern network safety technology makes it possible to instantly safety-stop a machine, easily segment an application into safety zones or quickly diagnose a safety device," explains Tracy Lenz, senior product support engineer, for Wago (www.wago.us).