Legislation

Machine Safety Guide

To help with understand the new Machinery Directive, we have produced an comprehensive Safe Machinery Guide

The guide covers the main aspects of making machines safe, taking a holistic view of risk assessment, risk reduction, inherently safe design, safeguarding and functional safety.

This guide includes:

	Why safety & legal framework As well as the moral obligation to avoid harming anyone, there are laws that require machines to be safe, and sound economic reasons for avoiding accidents.
	Risk assessment In order for a machine to be made safe, it's necessary to assess the risks that can result from its use. We explain the iterative process of applying BS EN 14121-1.
	Safe design and safeguarding Some risks can be avoided by simple measures, but where inherently safe design is not practicable, the next step is safeguarding. We explain the principles behind some of the safeguarding options available from Schneider Electric.
	Functional safety Functional safety standards are intended to encourage designers to focus more on the functions that are necessary to reduce each individual risk and what performance is required for each function, rather than simply relying on particular components.
	Worked examples Applying the two new functional safety standards to the same scenario – providing some insight into the similarities and differences between the standards, which may help designers of safe machinery to decide which standard to use.
	Useful reference material Annexes containing the equations from the functional safety standards required for SIL and PL verification and the architectures.