Machine safety, which has always been a concern for end users and machinery manufacturers, has become an increasingly complex undertaking for OEMs due to the increased use of automation technologies on machines and the growing application of diverse international regulations. Though the process of integrating safety into machine design is being made easier with software applications, new issues of concern are frequently being added as machinery becomes more integrated into facility-wide production operations and connected for Internet of Things initiatives.
To help ease this task for OEMs and address the safety concerns of users, PMMI—The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies (parent company of Automation World), has long supported and been central to the development of the ANSI/PMMI B155.1 standard. First approved by American National Standards Institute (ANSI) in in 1972, the B155.1 standard has been reviewed and revised with subsequent approvals in 1979, 1986, 1994, 2000, 2006 and 2011.
Today, PMMI announced that the Board of Standards Review at the American National Standards Institute has approved the newly revised standard, ANSI/PMMI B155.1-2016.
According to PMMI: The objective of the ANSI/PMMI B155.1-2016 standard is to improve the safety of packaging and processing machinery and eliminate injuries to personnel working on these systems by establishing requirements for the design, construction, reconstruction, modification, installation, set–up, operation and maintenance of processing and packaging machinery systems. The standard guides processing and packaging machinery suppliers and users through a risk assessment process designed to ensure that reasonably foreseeable hazards are identified and corresponding risks are reduced to an acceptable level.
“Although engineers have long applied an informal risk assessment framework, the ANSI/B155.1-2016 standard defines a formal method to conduct and document the risk assessment process,” said Fred Hayes, director of technical services, PMMI. “PMMI continues to address the safety of packaging, processing and packaging-related converting machinery through its various standards and technical reports.”
The ANSI/PMMI B155.1-2016 standard will be available for purchase through the ANSI webstore at http://webstore.ansi.org/.
