EN ISO 13849-1 and EN/IEC 62061 !

[JesperMP]

Does the above-mentioned two standards mean anything to you ?
They pertain to EU for sure, and I think also other countries outside EU.

The old standard for machine safety EN 954-1 will be replaced by EN ISO 13849 and EN/IEC 62061 on 31. dec 2009.
After that you cannot sell or take a machine into operation unless it is verified that it has the required "Performance Level".
The verification part is no simple matter. It entails careful calculation of the socalled MTTFd (mean time to failure - dangerous), which again mean you must obtain information about all components that are part of a safety system on the machine. The calculations themselves should be horribly complicated. Luckily there is a software solution to make things easier. It is called Sistema and is a free software developed by BGIA, and already has libraries for components from many suppliers.

I am at the beginning of learning how to accomplish this before the deadline, and I would like to share experiences with people in the same situation out there.

Questions:
Does EN 13849-1 come as a surprise to you at this time ?
Are you working with the EN 13849-1 standard already ?
Are you working with Sistema ?

 

[fryman]

Hi Jesper

i have never heard about Sistema, but i will for sure look into it now, as its seems that it will save alot of time.

i did know about the 13849, but have only had a brief look at some materials by sick, where we now have to use either preformance level or sil level.

Further more there is the new version of en60204-1 thats going to be valid from the 29th of dec. in europe, i think it is already in use in the rest of the world.

 

[504bloke]

I was chatting to the Pilz man yesterday about a job and he mentioned that the jurys out till dec 09 and rumour has it there may be a 2 year extension period (but dont hold your breath)

Pilz are going to be doing courses on it.

Another headach i could do without !

http://www.pilz.us/company/news/sub/knowhow/articles/03905/index.en.jsp

http://www.pilznews.com/news/03/6.htm

 

[504bloke]

Siemens Safety Evaluation Tool

https://eb.automation.siemens.com/r...tion.siemens.com/spice/sid/index.html?lang=en

But beware you have to answer a nice questionarre to get there!!

 

[JesperMP]

We had a couple of Sick safety persons in today to give a briefing on EN 13849-1 and Sistema.

They mentioned the Siemens system, but said that it was targeted at 100% Siemens components (mono-culture !). Sistema should be a completely open system, and all the major vendors are supporting it - maybe not directly by Siemens though as the major exception.

I also heard a rumar about a possible extention of the grace period. But it was only months, not years, and no guarantee that it will happen. For now we must act as if there is no extention.

The big new thing is not that there is a new way to decide the required performance level. The really new thing is that you must verify that you have achieved the performance level.

I think that most of the bigger companies are at least aware of the new reality, if not ready for it. But smaller companies are maybe oblivious to it all.

 

[JesperMP]

Link to Sistema:
http://www.dguv.de/bgia/en/pra/softwa/sistema/index.jsp