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Is it a machine or a system?

Paul Roman
Good afternoon


I am looking for someone who can help advise regarding an installation of materials handling equipment.  Within the installation you have numerous conveyors, automated cranes, robots cells as an example. Each having a control panel which would isolate that individual item.  The question I have is when you take each of these 'machines' so various conveyors and automated cranes aand they are interconnected can you still treat them as individual machines, thus the electrical design falls under the machinery directive, or do you treat it as a distributed systen and therefore it would be classed as a system and perhaps therefore meet different criteria for electrical design.


I am trying to ensure that our designs which are designed within mainland Europe under the machinery directive meet the requirments as an installation in the UK, where some are looking at it as a distibuted system and therefore applying 17th addition for example.


Any help greatly appreciated.


Paul.
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  • 0
    Just a few thoughts...

    "The Machinery sector is an important part of the Engineering Industry. Machinery consists of an assembly of components, at least one of which moves, joined together for a specific application. The drive system of machinery is powered by energy other than human or animal effort."


    This seems to be an fairly extensible definition...


    The HSE's interpretation of the Machinery Directive is here


    In a busy non-partitioned working environment with lots of moving open conveyors etc it is common to have a network of zonally grouped emergency stops covering moving equipment across readily definable and inuiitively understood visual fields.  This not only reduces confusion over what EM stop button to press in any given emergency, but also reduces the local background noise allowing people to concentrate and communicate more easily to respond to what has happened.


    Having quickly looked I can't find mention of this type of arrangement in the Machinery Directive. 


    Based on this example alone, I expect you will need to make some global and zonal level risk assessments and safety related system integration design choices that are not fully explored in the Machinery Directive.


    James


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  • 0
    Just a few thoughts...

    "The Machinery sector is an important part of the Engineering Industry. Machinery consists of an assembly of components, at least one of which moves, joined together for a specific application. The drive system of machinery is powered by energy other than human or animal effort."


    This seems to be an fairly extensible definition...


    The HSE's interpretation of the Machinery Directive is here


    In a busy non-partitioned working environment with lots of moving open conveyors etc it is common to have a network of zonally grouped emergency stops covering moving equipment across readily definable and inuiitively understood visual fields.  This not only reduces confusion over what EM stop button to press in any given emergency, but also reduces the local background noise allowing people to concentrate and communicate more easily to respond to what has happened.


    Having quickly looked I can't find mention of this type of arrangement in the Machinery Directive. 


    Based on this example alone, I expect you will need to make some global and zonal level risk assessments and safety related system integration design choices that are not fully explored in the Machinery Directive.


    James


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