Machine Builder (OEM) Solutions

Safety Matters for Machine Builder OEM Solutions

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Machine Builder (OEM) Solutions

What Matters

Safety Matters

Did you know that implementing the right safety system can increase productivity while helping mitigate risk and minimize costs? Thanks to advances in automation technology, as well as increasingly cohesive global standards and a manufacturing culture keen on protecting people and optimizing machines, machine builders have the best opportunity ever to design a system that improves an end user’s productivity without compromising safety.

Rockwell Automation offers a full line of innovative safety automation products and services to help you provide your customers with a single, trusted source for all their safety automation needs at a competitive price. Designing safety into the automation system helps you be more competitive because it helps your customers gain improved information flow and diagnostics, design flexibility and better overall system reliability, all of which help increase productivity and reduce costs.

Safety Is Good Business

A well-designed, well-implemented safety system can help increase productivity and profits, while meeting key regulatory requirements for providing a safer place to work. Just as important, companies are focusing more on their safety records and processes, which are becoming as critical to manufacturers as their output reports and cost-reduction efforts. This trend is shifting the way equipment is designed. That is, instead of adding safety components to an existing control system, machine builders more proactively consider safety control options early in the design process.

Avoiding occupational injuries remains one of the highest priorities for end-users, since its effects can boost employee morale, increase production and support lean manufacturing goals. Companies can reduce the costs associated with workplace incidents while still providing a safer work environment, if they implement a comprehensive safety program and risk assessment.

As the global leader in machine and process safety, Rockwell Automation is best equipped to help you design cost-effective, safe automation systems for your customers.

Global Standards

Staying abreast of current and emerging industry standards and guidelines is an ongoing challenge for most players in the manufacturing industry. The recent wave of revisions improves the way machine safety systems will be designed. The new functional safety approach to global standards adds a time element — the probability of dangerous failure, and its inverse, the mean time to dangerous failure — to build on the existing safety structure approach. This time element adds a confidence factor that the safety system will perform properly today and tomorrow.

Global customers prefer a supplier like Rockwell Automation with international presence and products that help them meet local standards. Because of its market leadership and participation in several standards bodies, including ANSI, IEC, ISA and ISO, Rockwell Automation can help machine builders navigate the latest global and local standards — whether you are designing a new system, retrofitting an old one, or preparing for the future.

Innovative Technology

The inherent properties of the automation solutions from Rockwell Automation make it easier for OEMs to cost effectively build for safety. The transition from electro-mechanical relays to solid-state devices brings machine builders a host of new benefits for endusers, including improved diagnostics, improved reliability and better space efficiency. Likewise, the integration of safety controls into network-based architectures provides valuable plant-floor information that can be used to optimize production and help reduce downtime.

CIP Safety™ allows manufacturers to maximize production by synchronizing the safe and standard functions of equipment. By allowing the easier integration of information flow throughout the control system, data and system status can be made available to the appropriate people. Operators and maintenance personnel have visibility into machine safety events, providing operators with the knowledge to rapidly respond to and recover machine production. Management has visibility into key productivity data, including the reasons for safety events and response time to resolve. CIP Safety also allows the distribution of safety control devices to appropriate locations on a machine, thereby helping to reduce overall installation costs.

The ability to implement safety control within a single network architecture offers many advantages over hardwiring, including reduced design, installation and maintenance costs, as well as expanded diagnostic capabilities. New safety control technology also helps streamline lock-out/tag-out procedures, thereby improving productivity while helping minimize the desire for operators to bypass the safety system.

Additionally, the practice of designing in safety upfront helps machine builders evaluate and mitigate risks early in the process, saving critical time and helping you get machines to market faster. Plus, thanks to innovative safety technologies that make it possible to use zone control and safe speed for maintenance and repairs, as well as the ability to streamline hardware, machines use less energy, require less downtime and are more productive in general.

For OEMs, the flexible, scalable automation solutions from Rockwell Automation will help you lower your Total Cost to Design, Develop and DeliverSM safer machines and systems to end users.

Proactive Risk Assessment

A well-prepared and well-executed risk assessment can make a substantial difference in helping companies prevent accidents and injuries. While some machine builders do this voluntarily, some standards bodies and end-users require machine builders to complete a formal risk assessment prior to delivering a system. For example, Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute (PMMI) has the new ANSI/PMMI B155.1-2006 safety standard for packaging machinery. Conducting a risk assessment as part of the machine design process will help OEMs ultimately save money because it helps identify issues upfront, before installation, thereby helping you deliver a safer machine faster that meets global, regional and/or local standards.

To help OEMs reap the cost rewards of risk assessments and to meet these evolving industry mandates, Rockwell Automation can help you define, understand and mitigate risks. This helps them design machines with the safety and integrity of the machine in mind at an early stage in the development.

Product and Service Highlights

Help your customers achieve their factory floor goals with the peace of mind that comes from a safety solution with true integration. Rockwell Automation has an extensive line of innovative products that get standard and safety products working together.