Integrating Safety: Using a Safety Portfolio to Improve Bottom-Line Performance

A safety product portfolio allows companies to maximize productivity of their workers and machines, minimize downtime occurrences and reduce the “time-to-repair” when there is an outage or disruption in production.

In the U.S., where industrial safety is considered sacrosanct, some companies, while using safety standards as guidelines, still do not make machine safety a top priority. Ironically, some manufacturers are falling short on safety due to a tragic lack of knowledge about how safety equipment and the integration of safety solutions have evolved in recent years. This evolution allows safety equipment to be easily and economically integrated in the automation system design process at the earliest stages of development.

Today, integrated safety solutions can be leveraged to maximize productivity and improve bottom-line performance. Unfortunately, many companies are cowed by the upfront costs associated with safety, which, by some industry estimates, adds no more than 2 to 5 percent to the cost of an automated system.

The upfront costs, of course, are negligible when weighed against the risks associated with not building safety into automation systems. “If safety is not integrated early in the machine life cycle, the risk a company is exposed to includes potential harm to their employees, lost work time of the employee due to injury, lost production due to after effects of an incident, and lack of productivity because the machine has not been optimized to run safely and must be stopped to be repaired and adjusted,” says Michael Miller, safety business development manager for Rockwell Automation... Read more

New Standards for Functional Safety Gain Acceptance -

Safety expert Heinz Gall of TÜV Rheinland discusses how new standards for the use of computer-controlled safety systems deliver a higher level of safety, reliability and quality.

The basic Functional Safety standard, along with new sector-specific standards, have gained widespread acceptance; the adoption of these standards clears the way for computer controls to be used for functional safety systems. Instead of a chain of wires connecting electromechanical switches, sophisticated computer controls can now be used in functional safety systems. Computer controls provide up-to-the-second data that reduce downtime, catch problems before they occur, and improve overall employee safety.

Today, the basic Functional Safety standard IEC 61508 (“Functional Safety of Electrical / Electronic / Programmable Electronic Safety Related Systems”) and the sector-specific standards, such as IEC 61511 for the process industry and IEC 62061 / EN/ ISO 13849 for machinery applications, are accepted practice in many countries and industries. For the first time, end users and system integrators have standards that are accepted worldwide to guide them throughout the safety life cycle of their facilities. For manufacturers, the standards, especially IEC 61508, provide a guideline for the design of safety-related equipment.

”The adaptation of computer-controlled safety systems represents a major technological leap forward,” says Heinz Gall, head of business sector automation, software, and information technology at TÜV Industrie Service GmbH, a subsidiary company of the TÜV Rheinland Group, headquartered in Cologne, Germany, one of the world's leading providers of compliance testing and certification services... Read more

ANNOUNCEMENT

Safety Automation Forum - November 18, 2008

Hear leading authorities from Chevron, Goodyear, Procter & Gamble, Sherwin-Williams, TÜV Rheinland and other key organizations share their expertise on best practices, evolving standards and how integrated safety solutions can improve the bottom line. Our one-day agenda, moderated by Automation World's well-known and respected Editor in Chief, Gary Mintchell, will provide ample opportunities for questions, feedback sessions and networking with industry peers and experts. For more information, click here >>