The Safety Standards Maze, 3 Comments: More Standards, Validation

By J.B. Titus August 24, 2009

A frequent question raised by industry is where can I go to get a comprehensive listing and understanding of machine safety standards?

Most often it seems that awareness of certain safety standards are developed over time within any one company. Influences have come from knowledge on the part of individual employees, references from suppliers, educational seminars, OSHA, and more……..but  there’s no one place anyone can go to research their safety standards. Like, a data base that’s both current and offers comprehensive information about all U.S. standards that apply to given applications. Even OSHA’s regulations don’t cover all machine safety applications so they reserve the right to reference industry (consensus) standards when needed.

With this said – industry seems left to do their own research and define the standards they will choose to build their safety strategy around. To help industry work their “maze”, consultants have come to their rescue. Yet, in today’s 4G internet world you’d think someone would have built an application based machine safety standards library.

Please – let us geeks know where we can go on the internet to make this maze a “walk in the park”?

Posted by J.B. Titus on August 24, 2009

COMMENTS

September 11, 2009

In response to: The Safety Standards MazeSafetyCliff commented:

My industry, Semiconductor Manufacturing Equipment, has been writing and proliferating safety guidelines for years through our industry organization SEMI. Our equipment has various hazards: electrical, mechanical, chemical, in short almost every hazard is present in a semiconducotr “fab” and there was no off-the-shelf standard so we created one. We refence ISO, NFPA, JIS and other standards around the world so key data are available in one place. Several Third Parties participate as well, bringing their expertise and tacit validation to the process.

September 2, 2009

In response to: The Safety Standards MazeTeamPCT – Davenport, IA commented:

I tend too utilized this website when I have questions:

www.safetybase.com

September 2, 2009

In response to: The Safety Standards Mazefatcat commented:

there are three types of standards: A for basic safety standards (giving basic concepts, principles for design, and general aspects that can be applied to all machinery), B for generic safety standards (dealing with one safety aspect or one type of safeguard), and C for machine safety standards (dealing with detailed safety requirements). There are two type A standards that I know: ISO 12100-1 and ISO 12100-2. These I assume are the core in safety. Others such as IEC 60204 Safety of machinery Electrical equipment of machines are type B standards. And others are somewhere between type B and C, namely IEC 61511, IEC 61508. There is also a directive called 98/37/EB, and also other continent standards. The standards are not necessary intrincically dodgy…