Harmonised standards are European standards with legal weight: follow them and your machinery is presumed to meet the essential requirements.
They are cited in the Official Journal of the EU and split into A, B and C types: A for general principles, B for particular safety aspects or devices, C for individual machine types. Nothing has yet been harmonised under the new Machinery Regulation 2023/1230, so presumptions earned under the old Directive cannot be assumed to carry over.
Functional safety is the part of a machine’s safety that depends on its control system working correctly, from sensor through logic to actuator.
An emergency stop is the red, latching control on a yellow background that when pressed, overrides everything else and brings a machine to a safe stop in an emergency.
A safe system of work is a formal procedure designed to ensure a task, such as maintenance, can be carried out without exposing anyone to harm.
For nearly two decades, the Machinery Directive (2006/42/EC) has been the backbone of machinery safety compliance across Europe.
Introduction Machinery is now software-defined, connected, and increasingly autonomous. The Machinery Regulation (EU) 2023/1230 treats software failures as
A question we hear regularly from clients is which assessment do they actually need for their machinery —
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