Industrial Machinery

The Industrial machinery sector is a major part of the engineering industry and economy in general. According to Machinery Directive of EU, machinery consists of an assembly of components, at least one of which moves, joined together for a specific application. The drive system of machinery is powered by energy other than human or animal effort. In addition to moving parts industrial machinery may employ a control panel, which has unique requirements and regulations of its own. Industrial control panels are defined by the NEC section 409.2 as an assembly of two or more power circuit components, control circuit components, or any combination of power and control circuit components.
Another important and unique aspect of industrial machinery from regulatory perspective and safe design in general, is a risk assessment, which not only a fundamental methodology in achieving a safe design, but often may be required by some of the compliance schemes. According to ISO 12100, risk is being defined as combination of the probability of occurrence of harm and the severity of that harm. If functionality of the system is critical to maintaining required safety level, or malfunction of which may endanger the safety of persons, the performance level of components or entire control system need to be considered for functional safety. Functional safety is the part of the overall safety of a system that depends on the component or equipment operating correctly in response to its inputs, including safe mitigation of possible operator errors, component failures and environmental changes.

Some of the safety standards covering machinery and tools requirements:

• IEC/EN 60204 (Safety of machinery – International/European requirements)
• ISO/EN 12100 (Safety of machinery/General principles for design/Risk assessment and risk reduction – International/European requirements)
• ISO/EN 13849 (Safety related parts of control systems: General principles for design – International/European requirements)
• IEC/EN/CSA 60825 (Safety of lasers products – International/European/Canadian requirements)
• UL 508/A (Standard for Industrial Control Panels and Equipment – US requirements)
• NFPA 79 (Electrical Standard for Industrial Machinery – US requirements)
• CSA C22.2 # 14 (Industrial Control Equipment – Canadian requirements)
• IEC/UL/CSA 60745-series (Hand Held Motor Operated Electric Tools)