Feature Machine safety & hazardous areas Shed some light on safety
The need to protect assets (the people and the means of production) in the manufacturing sector is an important topic. Simon Adams, UK managing director at WERMA Signaltechnik, considers the roles that industrial warning beacons and sounders play in maintaining a safe working environment
T
he Machinery Safety Directive EN ISO 13849-1 contains a vast amount of information and lays down many requirements for machine builders and operators – all designed to ensure that the means of production in any manufacturing enterprise are installed correctly and operated in a safe manner. The Directive places an obligation on both machinery designer and operator to ensure that equipment is fitted with adequate safeguards to protect machine operators, and any other staff working in the vicinity of such production machinery, from acciden- tal injury.
So, how do industrial beacons and sounders fit in with all this? At the time of writing, signal device manu- facturer Werma says it boasts the most extensive range of products in Europe that conforms to the new guidelines relating to machine safety. If the signal device on a machine is prioritised for safety purposes, the new Directive stipulates that the design engineer must include a safety value for the device in his risk analysis. Werma now offers these safety values for more than 100 signalling devices, ranging from signal towers to visual, audible or combined signal devices in various sizes and designs.
The German technical testing authority, TÜV has tested and certified these signal devices with exceptional results; in particular, all products achieve the best MTTFd (mean time to dangerous failure) value of greater than 100 years. MTTFd specifies the nominal operational duration until device failure, in accordance with the EN ISO 13849-1 safety standard.
Non-safety related applications All Werma signal devices are suitable for use in non safety-orientated signal and warning systems, in accordance with the Machinery Directive, and meet the requirements of all relevant regulations. But how can these devices be used to provide simple but effective protection for both machine and operator?
Thanks to its wide range of optical and audible signal devices and acces- sories, the company can provide a solution to those machine safety mon- itoring problems where the key
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requirement is to offer local visual and audible warning to workers and supervisors that a machine is not run- ning as it should. Moreover, these products can be deployed to make a significant contri- bution to ‘Overall Equipment Effectiveness’ (OEE) monitoring and management tasks – in particular a new product called WIN (Wireless Information Network), which can be supplied as an accessory to Werma’s KOMBI 70 and 71 signal tower ranges.
Signal towers offer a transmission range of 300m clear line of vision, but more complex factory layouts can also be accommo- dated
with signal towers, or a more complex manufacturing operation involving as many as 50 machines. Transmission range is a respectable 300m clear line of vision, but as each slave acts as a jumper to the nearest slave, more com- plex factory layouts that may have potential transmission path problems, can be accommodated.
Plug and Play
This ‘plug-and-play’ system basically consists of a transmitter module, or ‘slave’, which fits neatly into the Kombisign 70/71 signal tower. The slave transmits information relating to the changes in status of the different light elements of the tower, corre- sponding to the operational status of the machine to which it is attached. The information is transmitted wire- lessly to a small receiver unit, or ‘master’, which is connected to a USB port on any available PC or laptop. Included in the WIN package is a soft- ware application, which, when installed, enables various reports to be generated, providing an analysis of machine availability.
Additional transmitter units (slaves) are simple to add to the system and up to a maximum of 50 signal towers and WIN units can be accommodated by a single master receiving unit. This pro- vides considerable scope for users of the system, whether they have just two or three machines or stations equipped
Werma’s WIN sys- tem can be com- bined with any Kombisign 70/71 signal tower config- uration to provide an OEE monitoring and analysis sys- tem – just a laptop or PC, on which to run the associated monitoring and analysis software, is needed
Once installed, WIN can provide valuable machine performance data. For example, should a machine equipped with a signal tower develop a fault or enter a condition that forces the signal to switch from a ‘green’ status indication to one of ‘amber’ or even ‘red’, the moment that change occurs it is transmitted wirelessly and recorded by the PC or laptop to which the receiver is connected.
According to Werma, it boasts the most extensive range of products in Europe that con- forms to the new guidelines relating to machine safety
Analysing machine performance The time and duration of the status change, machine malfunction or error is stored and the software package supplied with the system allows simple but effective productivity and run-time analyses to be performed for each machine or station guarded by a signal tower.
Armed with such performance and operational data, the user gains a better insight into the running effi- ciency of his equipment, allowing him to take any necessary steps to improve efficiencies. And all the time, ade- quate precautions have been taken to optimise machine and operator safety, thanks to the application of warning beacons.
WERMA Signaltechnik T: +44 (0)1536 486930
www.werma.co.uk
Enter 213 WINTER 2013 Irish Manufacturing
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