FEATURE SMART FACTORIES SMARTER FACTORIES – SAFER WORKING T


he picture frequently painted with Industry 4.0 is a ‘lights out factory’ –


a completely automated smart factory, requiring no human intervention. Yet, that’s not so much a journey forward as a complete step change, and for many it doesn’t represent a practical implementation of Industry 4.0 at all. Operators and maintenance staff are going to be key elements of any Industry 4.0 smart factory installation well into the future, and that in turn means that safety continues to be a vital consideration. For packing operations commencing


their Industry 4.0 journey, the issue is not so much one of removing people from the plant floor as implementing systems where people work in harmony and safely with the processes. Brillopak director, David Jahn explains:


“Health & Safety should never be an afterthought. In order to work safer and achieve greater productivity, it is critical that factories take a strategic view of the legal and operational requirements at the outset. Automated packing, case loading and palletising machines should always be designed around safety rather than designed for a function and then bolting on a safety system later on in the manufacturing or testing process. This isn’t radically new or specifically applicable to Industry 4.0, just good, safe, productive business practice. However, it requires a different mindset to machine building.” The daily quest to optimise productivity and meet tight deadlines means that operators and maintenance personnel are almost forced to try to defeat safety systems. When the default reaction of a machine is an emergency stop triggered whenever an operator approaches, productivity can never be optimised. Indeed, such safety arrangements may almost be considered as confrontational from an operator’s point of view. Putting into context a typical packing scenario, Jahn says many ‘stop-start’ activities can treble production downtime


S16 MAY 2018 | MACHINE SAFETY SUPPLEMENT


Variable speed drives provide enhanced control during a pickand pack process


In food produce environments and packhouses, the benefits of automation when it comes to workforce health and safety are uncontended. From eliminating arduous and repetitive tasks to working uninterrupted within inhospitable chilled settings, robots are most certainly the future. Case loading specialist, Brillopak and industrial automation vendor, Omron explore how smart robots, hardware and software can be deployed to work collaboratively, safely and productively alongside human counterparts


and eat into OEE. If the restart process from a controlled or emergency stop is not logical, simple and fast, this too encourages reckless behaviour among machine operatives, who typically bypass safety measures to get a machine up and running again. “Short line stops are often viewed as the bane of packing line operations,” notes Jahn. To overcome situations like this, Brillopak’s P160 robotic case packer applies a combination of technology, variable speed drives and mechanics that make restarts less complex. As a result, personnel are less inclined to take short cuts. Suggesting that safety systems in the future could be all but invisible to operators and maintenance personnel, Dan Rossek from Omron concurs, saying: “People in the future will have no reason to try to defeat the safety technologies because they are no longer slowing them down.”


Machine of the future are taking a fully integrated approach to safety


DON’T LET YOUR SAFETY GUARD DOWN As plant floor space becomes more valuable and more machinery is squeezed in, fixed guarding is often considered a design restriction. Yet without it, the chances that operators and maintenance personnel might encroach into a danger zone increase. There are different ways to approach


this dilemma suggests Jahn. “Again, you are looking at the whole picture. This can


include providing quick accessibility to clear a bottleneck or carry out maintenance, selecting the most efficient type of guard, ranging from locked, hinged or heavy weighted, and ensuring your workforce receives regular training. H&S execs we encounter are well informed and we always try to utilise their expertise at the start of each machine build to reach the optimal and safest solution. “Having to physically remove guards


and reinsert them can be much more time consuming than locked panels,” says Jahn. Ten minutes of machine downtime removing panels could potentially equate to 1,200 fewer units being packed, he asserts. Brillopak also factors ergonomics into machine layout, including how maintenance engineers can access key areas comfortably, avoiding overstretching and bending into or around tight corners. Another approach to physical or static


guarding is to deploy force sensing technology. Here, the robot slows down when operators approach, only stopping when a set threshold is passed, which significantly improves productivity. Rossek explains how this type of


software can be applied. “Zones of safety can be defined with scanners, and software functions such as safe speed 1 (SS1) or safe torque off (STO) can be implemented in variable speed drives. Different modes of operation can be defined depending on whether it is operators or maintenance staff who are interacting with the machine, each with their own requirements, and limiting speed and/or functionality accordingly.”


COLLABORATION BETWEEN HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE The term ‘integrated safety’ has become a somewhat overused and misapplied


/AUTOMATION


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