Machine Safety Life Cycle

Machine Safety Report

The machine safety report consists of:

• Risk Assessment report
• Compliance report
• Safety requirements specification
• Summary and Visual safety report

Risk Assessment Report
The Risk Assessment document provides machine users and builders with an outline of the machine’s safety health. It documents the tasks, hazards, estimated risk level, risk recommended reduction measure, the risk level after reducing the risk and the compliance of the existing risk reduction measures.

Each machine should have a documented risk assessment, there are various risk assessment methodologies that can be followed to achieve the outcome.

Some of the more common risk assessment standards used today are:ANSI B11.0 Safety of machinery

• ISO 12100 Safety of machinery – Risk assessment and risk reduction
• RIA TR R15.306 Task-based risk assessment methodology
• PMMI B155.1 Safety Requirements for packaging and processing machinery

The risk assessment documents the hazards, pictures of the zone, estimated risk, required Performance Level where applicable, recommended risk reduction measure, risk after implementing risk reduction measures and non compliances of machine to current related standards.

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Engineering Services and Verification

Functional safety engineering design
Once the machine has a documented risk assessment and the safety requirements specification is completed, the safety engineering design begins.

Part of the engineering design is ensuring compliance with the following standards, ISO 13849-1 and ISO 13849-2.

Included as part of the deliverable of an engineering design:

• Updated electrical schematics designed to reflect the changes recommended within the risk assessment or safety audit.
• A Bill of Material (BOM), specifying the part numbers, manufacturer and quantities, of the new risk reduction measures
• Updated programs for the safety controller and safety PLC

Safety verification – engineering design review
Safety verification through engineering design review, is part of the requirements of functional safety in ISO 13849-1. Part of the verification process is to ensure that the safety related parts of the controls system are designed to the required Category Structure and Performance Level Required. The category structure of the safety control circuit is big part of what defines the performance level of your safety functions.

Safety verification – safety program review
Safety verification through safety program review (when a safety PLC or safety controller is being used), is part of the requirements of functional safety in ISO 13849-1, which states that verification of the software measures should be taken into account when determining the performance level needed for the functional safety.

Safety verification – through the use of software based calculations (SISTEMA and others)
As part of compliance with section 4.7 of ISO 13849-1, all safety verification need to be verified to make sure that the Performance Level (PL) achieved is greater than or equal to the Performance Level Required (PLr). The Performance Level of a safety function is directly related to the Probability of dangerous failure per hour (PFHd). The PFHD can be calculated manually or via software tools (SISTEMA)

Machine Functional Safety Validations and Training

Machine Functional safety validation
When designing safety function with a structure category of Cat 2, 3 & 4, engineers should test the safety function under fault conditions, to ensure that the safety function reacts as it is designed to, when or if it is subjected to a dangerous fault. The validation needs to be written based on the design of the Safety Requirements Specification and design of the safety functions and risk reduction measures.

A functional Safety Validation, is designed according to each risk reduction present on the machine, the design controls schematics, safety PLC/controller logic, Cat and PLr, environmental conditions, safety inputs and outputs.

Once the functional safety validation is documented, a functional safety validation can be performed on the machine.

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