J.B. Titus
Articles
Machine Safety: Consequences of not performing risk assessments!
If a machine shop hasn't had an incident or employee injury for 10 years, is that result of an excellent safety culture or simply great luck? Are “hope” and “lack of attention” proactive business strategies?
Machine Safety: hazard remediation, mechanical versus control system solutions
What's the residual risk for Cat 3 hazard mitigated by a fixed steel plate? Did the repair result in a control reliable solution? Are physical barriers or control solutions better to reduce risk. Five steps define the hierarchy of measures for hazard mitigation and machine safety risk reduction.
Machine Safety: Globalization of safety standards doesn’t equal global compliance
Countries are teaming to globalize and harmonize machine safety standards. IEC and ISO standards are trending to global standards and slowly are being adopted by various countries as requirements for conformance. Is compliance becoming global?
Machine Safety: Only engineers can lead the Risk Assessment process?
An incremental documented process called “Risk Assessment” is required in many updated standards. And, a new standard, ANSI B11.0 – 2010, Safety of Machinery – General Requirements and Risk Assessment, is dedicated to this topic. With all this attention folks still are not clear regarding whether an engineer is essential to lead the risk assessment process.
Machine Safety: Where do effective safety cultures roost?
An improved safety culture, advocated at the business level with engineering input, can bring about faster implementation of proven machine safety technologies, improving safety and adding economic value.
Machine Safety: an automatic sequencer does what?
In the world of machine control and machine safety, to really appreciate where we are today, don’t we need to have a reasonable understanding of where we’ve come from?
Machine Safety: consensus standards and OSHA compliance
In our plant we comply 100% with the OSHA regulations of 29 CFR 1910.xxx for machine guarding and personnel safety. Accordingly, OSHA would have no grounds to cite us for violations, right?
Machine safety and safety certified networks
Do you remember when PLCs came out in the early 1970s – were there any communication networks available at that time? What is pier to pier? Fishing?
Machine Safety: What do you mean the vice president said: So What?
After a two hour presentation in the conference room providing all the new high technology based machine guarding solutions and testimonials on operating cost savings, the vice president of operations said, “So what!”?
Machine Safety: Updating ISO 13849-1 & compliance for robots
On Feb. 7, I wrote a blog titled - ISO 13849-1 compliance is mandatory for robot applications (ANSI/RIA/ISO 10218-1&2: 2011). This particular blog has created a significant amount of feedback, which was my goal.