Deadline for New European Safety Standards Extended 24 Months

Automation World (Jones, Rockwell Automation) - Early Adopters Will Gain Significant Competitive Advantages. While time may wait for no man, it is waiting a bit for machine builders, as the European Commission has recently extended the deadline for the transition from the EN 954-1 safety standard to the new standards, EN ISO 13849-1 and EN/IEC 62061. The deadline for transition is now December 31, 2011, two years after the original deadline.

Jones contends there is no single cause for the Commission extending the deadline for compliance, but points to lack of data as a major factor. “I think it was assumed that by the end of 2009, everyone would know everything they needed to comply with the new standards. But what has become abundantly clear is that for some technologies—for people working with hydraulic and pneumatic systems, for example—getting the data has been a struggle.”


“When safety systems get in the way of productivity on a machine, that is when safety is most likely compromised,” says Jones. “If every time your safety system is upgraded, it takes a half hour to get your machine up and running, you can be sure that someone, somewhere is going to try to override that safety.”

“The new standards will help make your machine safer and they will also provide greater productivity,” says Jones. “Increasingly, you won’t make a machine safer by simply switching it off. On some sort of continuous process, you’re more likely to make it safer by changing from one run mode to another. It may be perfectly adequate to switch it down to a very slow speed or divert the flow if you need intervention. That in itself tells you that contemporary safety functionality is going to be based on sensing a number of factors on the machine: speed, position, temperature, or pressure. It can be all sorts of things.”