Vitality of the machine guards could not be ignored as they play vital role safety and protection of machine. Machine directive 2006/42/EC provide specific requirements related to machine guarding. Section 1.4.2.1 of the Essential Health and Safety Requirement provides certain situations and conditions to provide foolproof guarding to the machine
- The fixed guards must only be removed with the aid of tools and not otherwise
- No other ordinary machine related screw and bolts could be used for attaching the guards and the specific system of fixing guards must remain attached to them whenever these are removed. In specific case special provisions must be made to deviate from standard procedure
- Guards must be designed in a way that in any occasion of fall out of materials and objects through explosion, guards must be able to protect the environment and people by containing the hazard inside the machine
- The requirements also state that in event of removal of fixing the guard should not be capable of remaining in the position to give a false sense of security. This provision is specifically related to the designer of the machinery as they need to make sure that hinged guard opens automatically and the guard at the top of the machine are not retained in the original place by gravity when fixings are removed.
Interlocking devices prevent the users from unsafe actions that are mentioned in BS EN 1088 ‘Safety of machinery – Interlocking devices associated with guards – Principles for design and selection’ and are relevant to guarding procedures as mentioned in the Machinery Directive. The interlocking devices are used to prevent any misuse by the operator when the operator takes short cuts or does not use the machinery correctly. The manufacturers of the interlocking devices in the machine must ensure that the interlocks design carry little chance of defeat by the operators and do not produce conditions that deem hazardous for machine and the environment. Section 5.7 of BS EN1088 clearly states that "If the specification of the safety interlocking device is such that it is possible to defeat the safety function solely by a reasonably foreseeable action at the interlocking device itself and if the device itself is to be relied upon to prevent defeat, it should provide measures to minimize the possibility of defeat."
Reasonably foreseeable action refers to any intentional attempt made to defeat the interlocks manually or with the help of some readily available objects such as screws, sheet and metal pieces, needles, coins, keys, adhesive tapes, spare actuators, string or wires, screw drivers, hex keys, wrenches and pliers even including removal of actuators and switches with the intention of disabling interlocking devices and all others as specified by the relevant standard. All these actions and objects make it essential to design the interlocks very carefully. Many times it is advised as to use high strength adhesives, welding and special anti-tamper fixing devices to reduce the reasonably foreseeable action however in this case scenario guards could not be removed even for legitimate reasons and only way is to destroy the interlocking devices. Such strong steps are not suggested by the BS EN 1088 as it present alternative methods such as regular checking of interlocking systems by some safety control authority to reduce the intentional defeat of interlocking devices.
Other way is to reduce the temptation of the users by underlining the reasons that induce such circumstances. For instance, a guard may interfere with the machine working and productivity. In such cases, the designs of machine and interlocking devices should be used as such that they do not hamper the functioning of the machine. However, it is not as easy as it seems and an expert help is always advised who has extensive practical experience regarding the relevant field.
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