New Standards Defining the Basics of Manual Workstations

The number of manually controlled machinery workstations has decreased considerably since the early 2000s. Automatization and robot applications keep pushing people from the shop floors around the world.

Automated parts production and assembly may fail, however, calling for manual “emergency operation strategies”. Sometimes, production lots are simply not big enough to make fully automated production economical. And yet another factor bringing back manual control operations is the steady trend toward individualisation of products. Where the quantity of identical products is close to ONE, manual insertion and assembly of parts as well as manual start may return to the workplace.

Three of the most important basic safety standards needed in this field have been revised recently:

• EN ISO 13851 Safety of machinery - Two-hand control devices - Principles for design and selection 04.2019
• EN ISO 13854 Safety of machinery - Minimum gaps to avoid crushing of parts of the human body 09.2019
• EN ISO 13857 Safety of machinery - Safety distances to prevent hazard zones being reached by upper and lower limbs 10.2019

The changes in the three standards are everything but revolutionary. They may be summarised under the heading “modernisation”. But the publication of the new versions is a good opportunity to remind technicians and engineers of a few of the most pertinent aspects of machine safety, and alert them to an important standardisation trend.

Read more info about these standard updates in our White Paper