Allan Hill, NZIE column

Machine safety standards updates; AS/NZS 4024 – Safety of machinery, design of safety related parts of control systems, general principles for design.

With regard to machine safety, previously the Department of Labour has commented that you have “taken all practical steps” in your engineering safety design if you used the Australian standard AS4024. It is debateable if this would stand up in a court of law.

Many machine designers are not following the correct process for determining the required performance level requirement (PLr) of their safety rated electrical control system (SRECS) and requesting validation and verification, after the machine has been placed into service and in some instances after an incident or accident with the machine that has been upgraded.

The NZEI secretary/manager has been driving the adoption of AS 4024 as a joint AS/NZS since 2011.

Now with the support of some high profile companies, the forming of AS/NZS 4024 as a joint standard is happening. The secretary/manager is a committee member of special functions committee 041 (SF-041) who are reviewing and rewriting 26 sections of AS/NZS4024.

AS1755, the conveyor safety standard is also being rewritten and will form a section of AS/NZS 4024. Various revised parts of AS/ NZS 4024 was published on the 30 June 2014.

A meeting of the Main Committee SF-041 was held on Wednesday 4 June 2014 in Melbourne.

The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the applications guide for the AS 4024.1 Series, the conveyor projects for the AS/NZS 4024.3 Series and other current projects, including reports on recent international meetings attended by the chairman of the SF-041 committee Frank Schrever.

Schrever has been member SF 041 for AS 4024 safety of machinery series since 1999, he is now chairman. He is also the Standards Australia representative on ISO/IEC JWG 1 for combining EN ISO 13849 and IEC 62061.

A draft for the applications guide (project 101164, AS/ NZS 4024.1100) has been prepared by the chair and is being edited and progressed by SA for combined procedure and is expected to go out for combined procedure shortly. Committee comments on the document are then invited as part of the six weeks combined procedure stage. Comments received before the meeting were considered by the committee at the meeting to enable the document to progress to publication quickly after the combined procedure closing date.

The meeting also discuss the conveyor drafts prepared by SC SF-041-01 to progress those drafts to committee ballot and subsequent publication.

The meeting will further discuss project 101820 for AS/NZS 4024.2802 and any intended future work items.

Progress on developing AS/ NZS 4024 is great and well overdue, the institute should be congratulated for driving the initiative. Auckland branch meeting The Auckland branch of the NZEI is holding a technical meeting at Brightlight on 24 July at Brightlight’s offices in Auckland.

Brightlight LED lighting has the country’s largest LED showroom with lighting functioning in a live environment. Office lighting, residential and industrial lighting plus of course colour changing. The firm will do a short presentation on LED products and technology. Staff will give an overview of residential, commercial, and industrial application products available. Just another great reason to belong to the country’s leading electrical organisation.