Maintenance enhances machinery safety
A
Smartscan product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Sep 20, 2007
Smartscan has been providing a routine maintenance package as part of its safety system solutions for over 10 years.
Routine or preventive maintenance of safety products installed on machines is an important area within the machine safety life cycle.
There are of course many standard benefits to a routine maintenance schedule.
These include extending the product life, early identification of potential problems and reduced machine downtime and its significant associated costs.
In many factory environments machine safety products are exposed to a variety of potentially damaging encounters from fork lift trucks and high-pressure washdown to oil, grease and general damage from the day to day manufacturing processes.
For example, with safety light curtains this can result in product being knocked out of alignment, the connectors being broken or degrading of the Perspex window covering the infra-red light beams with the subsequent reduction in operation.
Smartscan has been providing a routine maintenance package as part of its safety system solutions for over 10 years.
The wealth of knowledge and practical experience the company has developed in this area gives its customers additional reassurance of the work being carried out and down-to-earth help with application queries.
The maintenance package will generally be scheduled on a yearly basis and carried out at a time to suit the customer, for example during specific downtime periods.
The maintenance package will comprise a number of deliverables.
A full service report will be provided, detailing the Smartscan safety product in use, the product status, positioning of the product and any work or repairs carried out.
It will also include a check list for all products detailing all the checks undertaken.
A certificate will be provided for assurance of the quality of the maintenance workmanship and compliance with the appropriate machine safety standards and legislation.
Example maintenance checks for a safety light curtain include: correct operation of the light curtains and accessories (remotes, relay control box, reset stations, cables etc), mechanical installation, electrical installation, stop-circuit interface, EMC check from the supply voltage and application specific checks.
Under the maintenance contract Smartscan will offer a loan guard if a guard has a problem that cannot be resolved on site.
Any repairs found necessary will be charged to the customer but only following approval from the customer and confirmed by a purchase order number.
There is a technical helpline open during office hours for application and technical product support.
Key benefits of the Smartscan maintenance package include: helping to reduce costly unplanned downtime by ensuring that the safety products continue to perform reliably through scheduled quality maintenance by competent Smartscan approved engineers; continued compliance with legislation and the appropriate machine safety standards; and the provision of detailed documented listings of Smartscan safety products for the site/machine plus regular input to the maintenance reporting process.
A regular maintenance package provides a useful safeguard in helping to identify possible changes to the machine/safety system.
It is not uncommon for modifications to be made to machines during their lifespan, typically to make it friendlier for the operators.
Over time these modifications can become part of the standard operating procedure.
Should these changes lead to a safety incident the company can find itself exposed to the full weight of the law, The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 (PUWER), as any changes will make the original risk assessment null and void.
In order to meet with these requirements a new risk assessment should be carried out after any changes to ensure that any new risks are identified and safeguarded.
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