In an ever more competitive industrial market, attention to safety is crucial. Injuries erode uptime and impact insurance costs. And the plant floor grows safer, pushed by regulations and pulled by technology. Jim O'Laughlin, product manager at SICK, points to an ongoing trend in North America to adopt "harmonized safety standards from throughout the world. Examples include ANSI/UL 61496-1, -2 and IEC 61508. These standards affect the manufacture and design of a variety of safety components ranging from safety-rated programmable logic controllers (safety PLCs) to safety light curtains and safety laser scanners. As the implementation of these devices continues to increase in North America, application-oriented standards may be the next group of standards that will be harmonized globally." (For more, click here.)
"An aging workforce and repetitive motion represent two of the major machine and worker safety issues facing the [welding] industry today," states Dane Dorn, safety manager at Miller Electric Mfg Co. Ergonomic concerns can be alleviated by "automating wherever possible, reducing manual lifting with carts, lift tables, and hoists, and easing the need for continuous motions with welding positioners/grippers and hydraulic and pneumatic presses." (For more, click here.)
Ergonomics, Workspace, Training
Production Basics' Erica Rice cites ergonomics, workspace configuration, and training as the major safety issues facing industry. "Often, managers think in terms of space, not use. They are most concerned with how everything will fit based on a dimension, not based on practical interaction," Rice explains. (For more, click here.)
"The key is to get the operators on board early, get their feedback, and provide proper training methods and materials to allow them to perform their jobs productively while lessening or eliminating risk," observes Liftomatic Material Handling Inc president Todd Berg. (For more, click here.) (Liftomatic increases plant safety with its drum handling equipment and attachments, as shown here.)
Fluke Corp focuses on electric safety as a major concern, noting that "every day, an average of 9,000 workers in the U.S. suffer disabling injuries on the job," costing industry tens of billions of dollars annually. (For more, click here.) Employers can prevent electrical injuries by installing "products that eliminate the need to work with live parts," comments Meltric's Bill Fortman. "Workers can safely replace motors or other electrical equipment with plug-and-play simplicity." (For more, click here.)
Andy Donlon, industrial lubricants advisor at ExxonMobil Lubricants & Specialties, tells IEN, "Workplace accidents and safety incidents can be prevented. Post-accident investigations reveal that many of these mishaps could have been avoided if personnel were more fully aware of workplace hazards and applicable critical safety guidelines." (For more, click here.)
Keeping workers in shape is a pressing concern. "Based on the information that we receive from the occupational health professionals that we do business with, the biggest issue facing industry is finding ways to maintain a healthy 'aging' workforce," Superfeet's Mark Sanders comments. "The average age of a worker in America is now 45+. These employees are still required to perform the same physical tasks of a much younger workforce. Consequently, doctors are witnessing an increase in musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) such as back fatigue, knee pain, and foot problems." (For more, click here.)
Safety's Impact on Productivity
Many companies still believe safety means lower productivity, a view that is out of date. "Many of today's machine safeguarding solutions minimize any impact on productivity and may even help improve it since workers feel they are able to operate machines safely at higher speeds," says Tom Knauer, vp/marketing at Scientific Technologies, Inc. "For example, use of a safety light curtain where a hard guard and door were previously required to limit access may provide faster and easier access for the operator with a high level of safety. Another example is the use of press brake guarding systems utilizing a laser beam under the tool ... which allows 'close in' operation with very high levels of safety instead of hard guards or safety light curtains which require the operator to stand further away and thereby impact cycle times." (For more, click here.) (STI's SR Series safety monitoring relays, shown here, feature 28 new fixed terminal and removable terminal models to suit nearly every potential safety monitoring requirement.)
The plant floor is often an unforgiving environment. "In a typical year, forklift accidents kill 100 workers and seriously injure another 200,000," notes Aisle-Master director/sales Joe O'Brien. "Training is always a good first step [but] with the fast-paced industrial environment, an abundance of distractions can produce harmful consequences." Changes in equipment design can lead to improved safety. (For more, click here.)
"More and more companies are installing safety barrier type products to safeguard plant areas in order to avoid catastrophic losses," adds Don Otte, executive vp of Cubic Designs Inc. (For more, click here.) Notes ATS safety manager Scott Stone: "Maintenance itself is a cornerstone to ensuring plant safety. Machines in poor condition can pose a number of different safety hazards, from a broken press or saw to leaks and spills on the floor that can cause a slip. Some of the most vulnerable workplace sites are confined spaces that need maintenance, like tanks and furnaces. ATS advocates preventative maintenance, not only assuring the hum of productivity, but to avoid machine breakdowns that could themselves lead to personal injury." (For more, click here.)
Safety networks have brought great advances in flexibility and scalability. "In the recent past, machines had to be 'inflexible' since the safety portion had to be hardwired," recalls Dr. Helge Hornis, intelligent systems manager at Pepperl+Fuchs. With safety networks engineers now can build "fully flexible machines. This allows them to design modular systems that can be modified anytime, even during the runoff phase at the user plant. Consequently, the labor intensive (and thus costly) installation and runoff is now faster and less costly." Networks such as DeviceNet Safety and PROFIsafe can be added to existing Fieldbus networks, and connected to Ethernet. (For more, click here.)
According to Berg, "Modular design in products allows for tremendous integration potential. The onset and true implementation of computer design allows us as manufacturers to do wonderful things for customers. Existing operations that require minor changes in a product to work in a specific environment were only a dream 10 years ago. Today, it is virtually possible to have 1, 2, 3 or more changes to a 'stock' product that allow a customer to use a particular device in a particular area that would have at one time been impossible."
PLCopen managing director Eelco van der Wal echoes this view: "We want to make it easier and more transparent to integrate safety . . . in the design and development phases from [the] start. This also makes it easier and much less costly (factors beyond 10) to certify a machine on safety aspects -- an insurance issue." (For more, click here.)
Automated guided vehicles, such as the one shown here, can be "integrated into any material handling process and are very scalable," observes Ryan S. Willis, director of marketing and business development at Transbotics. "Flexibility and scalability are attained by giving workers the tools to redesign their workstations around their individual needs," Dane adds. "In other words, the workstation is designed to fit the individual; the individual isn't required to adapt to the workstation." (For more, click here.)
Emergency Response Planning
Successful emergency response plans require "the right safety equipment," Dane notes. "For example, while addressing cardiac arrest in the workplace, Miller's safety committee noted that survival rates drop 10% every minute the patient goes without treatment, according to medical research data. As a result, Miller purchased 11 defibrillators earlier this year. Just three months later, two Miller first responders saved a vendor's life when he had a heart attack while visiting Miller."
"From a repetitive motion standpoint," comments Dane, "automation will increase where it makes the most sense -- for higher volume jobs. Ergonomically designed equipment and tools will also increase, as aging workers require a higher level of comfort for relative productivity."
Knauer believes the "hottest areas for R & D are safety networks and area guarding systems such as laser scanners and safety camera systems. Safety networks are following the trend set by non-safety (data) networks on the shop floor and in the office. There are several different solutions battling it out, with vendors aligning behind one or more -- ASISafe, SafetyBus P, and DeviceSafe are some of the most well known networks. SafetyBus P and ASISafe already claim to have installations, though more work needs to be done: future network innovations might include lower cost 'drops,' faster and/or more data transfer, and wireless networking. With regard to laser scanners and safety cameras, several laser scanners are already on the market, but the product is still in an early growth phase and refinements are being made in terms of range, reliability, programming, and networking. There are also several firms working on safety cameras, and these will require more development work before they are commercialized."
Wireless can play a role in safety, observes Leslie Baker, vp/Mfg Industry Segment at Nextel Communications, with equipment "manufactured with telemetry capabilities onboard . . . When a device malfunctions, an alert is triggered and sent to the manufacturer and/or service provider." (For more, click here.)
SICK's O'Laughlin believes the web will play an increasing role in "allowing users to obtain diagnostic information from safety-rated systems," but for now "web-based or wireless-based systems cannot be utilized for safety-rated control functionality."
Wi-Fi allows remote downloading "even to handheld devices," comments Berg, "making training and safety meetings much more immediate in their impact and application. Web capabilities today offer users immediate answers."
Companies can integrate safety with standard control systems by using safety-rated bus protocols, according to O'Laughlin. Although safety devices "must still be controlled by the safety-rated parts of the system . . . the safety-rated systems can coexist on the same network wire -- reducing cost and promoting full diagnostic information availability."
