Safety technology: Standards
Compliance to the Machinery Directive is a MUST in the European
Economic Area (EEA). The use of the standards is not mandatory but has a decisive advantage:
If standards are used which are published in the
Official Journal of the European Communities for compliance to the Machinery Directive or compliance to
national standards derived from the directive, an automatic presumption of conformity is assumed.
If an accident in the workplace with personal injuries occurs, it is assumed that the operator or machine manufacturer
has fulfilled all machine safety-related demands. This can be of immense significance when attempting to
clarify who is at fault.
Use of the European standards (EN standards) is imperative in order to implement the Machinery Directive.
The EN standards "Safety for machines" are subdivided into three main groups:
|
Type A: General design principles Defines demands which can be applied to all machine types: Fundamental safety demands. |
| Type B: Group standards These are "group standards". They deal with construction related aspects (type B1) such as minimum clearances, surface temperatures or functional aspects (type B2) such as Emergency-Stop or two-hand circuit. They can be applied for various machine groups. |
| Type C: Product standards Described as "Product standards" which involve the demands of the individual machine types. The C standard can be used to test and verify the machine safety. |
The safety requirements of the machinery directive and the EN standards vary widely and depend on the corresponding accident risk. In most of the C standards the concrete risks involved for the machine type are usually considered. The safety requirements which apply are predefined at the correspondingly high or low level.
In particular if no relevant C standard exists, the machine constructer must estimate the level of hazard or risk involved with a risk assessment and implement, test and document suitable measures for reduction of the risk involved.