Let's be careful out there!

Liam Moran I can't think of any reason why anyone needs to be locked inside a cell to program/ test/ setup a robot program.
i have been almost around the world installing robots and if such a thing was attempted by anybody no matter how senior or how talented he/ she may be that person would be fired on the spot and trust me I have seen people fired for less

Id love to know why and what situation you have to put yourself and others into that predicament
 
I was going to post this to Facebook and decided that my wife does not necessarily need to be aware that I work around large machines that could kill me at will.
 
In the early 1980's I was working for Ford in the UK, we had a nice new line which included robots for the first time.

An identical line was in Germany and they monitored the output between the two plants. They beat us time and again.

When one of our engineers went over there for some meetings, he decided to have a look and found they had overidden most door switches etc, to speed things up and were also hand building.

This was 35 years ago, not saying they disrespect safety systems so much nowadays with all the added legislature of the EU.

RIP the worker.
 
If a robot had a positioning error and we needed to reset, we'd manually move the arm to a position where a straight move to the reset position didn't hit anything, sometimes no movement was needed.

A foreman had watched us reset a few times and thought it would be a good idea to press reset himself once when it stopped during a lunch break.

He didn't move it first and it went straight to reset, demolishing anything in its path.
 
There was a lady killed at one of the plants I do work at (not programming robots) it basically went to pick up a box and she got in the way and it smothered her to death by keeping her pinned to the conveyor.

My question is why didn't the robot go to a safe position and shutdown the millisecond it didn't make it to the loading position? Was that bad programming on the robot companies part?
Poor programming. Motion controllers have several ways of handling these situations. Most have a following error and output saturated error. Now whether the robot should stop or move to a safe position is up for debate and the application.
 
Don't they have safety floor mats that if anyone is standing in the cell the robot shuts down? Thought I heard of these before. Or horizontal light curtains the width of the cell, across the whole cell?
 
Liam Moran I can't think of any reason why anyone needs to be locked inside a cell to program/ test/ setup a robot program.
i have been almost around the world installing robots and if such a thing was attempted by anybody no matter how senior or how talented he/ she may be that person would be fired on the spot and trust me I have seen people fired for less

Id love to know why and what situation you have to put yourself and others into that predicament

It is obvious to me that you know far more than I do and that your employer has far more advanced equipment available than I have. One task that I sometimes have to do is to resynchronise the axes on the robot by aligning vernier marks by jogging the robot using the teach pendant, which has to be done using visual means. How do you guys do this from outside the cell?
How do you modify a position if you cannot see where the tool is?
 
For such a situation, shouldnt there be a safe slow movement speed of the robot ?
I have also seen a kind of tethered "dead-mans button". The guy inside the cell has to press the button constantly, allowing the robot to move at the special slow speed.
I am no robot expert though.

You are correct Jesper, to operate the machine manually which is normally at a limited speed, you enable the movement by holding a deadman device on the teach pendant which has a centre active position. Pressing it over centre or releasing it will break the safety circuit, which stops the machine dead.
 
It is obvious to me that you know far more than I do and that your employer has far more advanced equipment available than I have. One task that I sometimes have to do is to resynchronise the axes on the robot by aligning vernier marks by jogging the robot using the teach pendant, which has to be done using visual means. How do you guys do this from outside the cell?
How do you modify a position if you cannot see where the tool is?

Still don't see why you need a buddy to activate the safeties
Why can't you use a pendant in jog/ manual mode
Aligning vernier marks really?? try using a clock all done inside while the gates are under LOTO
Try setting up a machine that inserts bristles into a tooth brush head then talk to me
 
I was going to post this to Facebook and decided that my wife does not necessarily need to be aware that I work around large machines that could kill me at will.

At work management worries about the robot that loads the cnc's but doesn't seem too concerned about the operator that puts a board on the chip conveyor so he can stand inside the machining center to change inserts.
 
A bit more info

http://www.inquisitr.com/2219089/ro...embly-line-heavy-bot-crushed-22-yr-old-youth/

Company blames worker for entering cell.

There are graphics and a video at the link of multi-robot cells. Puts me in mind of going into a lion cage. The video is of a multi-robot assembly station, I think I counted at least welders acting in concert and one just to place/remove the workpiece.

Orders of magnitude more complex than the little pick-and-place operation I dealt with.
 
Safety is not about minimising accidents, it's about minimising risk...

By definition, an accident is due to an "unforeseen circumstance", so you cannot prevent them, but what you can do is minimise the risk to personnel first, and machinery second.

This applies to everything, not just robot cells. In general, most "risk reduction" is done by physical separation from the hazardous area/environment.

The man that died was clearly in a hazardous area, and the question surely must be how was he allowed to be there ?

That isn't down to the programmers, who make the robots do their tasks, that's down to the system designers to prevent someone getting caught up in the mechanicals....
 
Safety is not about minimising accidents, it's about minimising risk...

By definition, an accident is due to an "unforeseen circumstance", so you cannot prevent them, but what you can do is minimise the risk to personnel first, and machinery second.

This applies to everything, not just robot cells. In general, most "risk reduction" is done by physical separation from the hazardous area/environment.

The man that died was clearly in a hazardous area, and the question surely must be how was he allowed to be there ?

That isn't down to the programmers, who make the robots do their tasks, that's down to the system designers to prevent someone getting caught up in the mechanicals....

This.

In addition to that; machines we are designing now not only have to deal with protecting operators, but also protecting operators and maintenance from meaningful misuse. Basically, it has gotten to the stage out there now where we have to design for people who are trying to hurt themselves with the equipment.

And in a not quite related matter; my best friend is a police officer. He hasn't referred to a traffic incident as an "accident" since he started. They are all crashes. I now too think the same way.
 
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...Basically, it has gotten to the stage out there now where we have to design for people who are trying to hurt themselves with the equipment...

Back in the 90's when I was working in a stamping plant I learned when designing controls to make them "Idiot Proof".

Then I found out I was underestimating the quality of idiots HR was hiring.
 
The number of cases where people are causing harm to themselves on purpose is increasing. In some parts of the world, or some socio-economic classes; this is an opportunity for compensation from the organisation and/or local government. Minor injuries are an "easy" way out, with the legislation working in favour of these people. It goes beyond making things "Idiot Proof".

Sorry for thread hijacking :p
 

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