About International Safety Standard ISO 12100
The international standardization of safety (ISO/IEC Guide 51) requires machines and devices to have safety measures complying with this standard.
Based on extremely high principles, international safety standards are organized to cover a wide range of subjects, structured in a hierarchical framework with lower standards conforming to higher standards (see diagram below).
International Safety Standards (ISO/IEC) Guide 51
1. Basic Safety Standards (Type-A Standards)
2. Group Safety Standards (Type-B Standards)
3. Individual Product Safety Standards (Type-C Standards)
Standard A, sitting at the pinnacle of international safety standards, is ISO 12100 which places a great importance on risk assessment to identify and evaluate hazards in machinery for the sake of establishing machine safety.
Currently, ISO 12100 and related knowledge are required for designing and manufacturing machinery for global use.
1. Basic Safety Standards (Type-A Standards)
Standards that deal with basic concepts and design principles commonly applicable to all machinery. It features the following three methods as requirements to ensure safety based on risk assessment:
- Risk reduction through design (inherently safe design)
- Risk reduction through safeguarding and complimentary protective measures
- Risk reduction through information for use
International Organization for Standardization (ISO) | International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) |
General principles for design + | – |
2. Group Safety Standards (Type-B Standards)
These are standards relating to elements commonly used in safety-related facilities (e.g. safety-related devices, electrical equipment, electronic devices) and safety-related physical quantities (e.g. temperature, safe distance).
About ISO 13849-1: 2015
Conventionally, safety was designed and evaluated based on deterministic point of view, represented by such electrical parts (non-semiconductors) as switches and relays.
However, as machinery/devices are getting more complex and software control is prevailing, such a conventional safety assessment method does not match actual environment. Thus, safety design and evaluation have been revised as ISO 13849-1:2015 incorporating the concept of IEC 62061.
As a result, MTTFd (lifetime until dangerous failure at parts level) and DCavg (detection of dangerous failure) have been added to the conventional definition based on architecture, making it possible to stochastically evaluate the reliability of safety control system, therefore, it has enabled quantitative evaluation of safety based on actual machine operation.
International Organization for Standardization (ISO) | International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) |
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3. Product Safety Standards (Type-C Standards)
So-called product standards that specify detailed safety requirements for specific machines.
Product examples: machine tools, industrial robots, forging machines, unmanned transport vehicles, chemical plants, transportation machinery, etc.
ISO (International Organization for Standardization) |
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IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) |
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