Australian Standards 4024 Series

People often ask me where all the technical safety stuff that is in Plant Assessor comes from. The answer on the surface is quite simple. It comes from Legislation, from Standards – Australian and International, from Codes of Practice and closely following developments in industry leading practice.

This often leads to discussion about Standards, and in particular the big kahuna of the machinery safety standards world.

AS 4024.1-2014 Series – Safety of Machinery

This series focuses on the safety aspects of machinery use more than any other series, and therefore the requirements for design. This series covers everything from the general principles of safety or machinery to risk assessment guidance and methods, controls, guarding, ergonomics right through to anthropometric data (human body measurements).

The AS 4024.1-2014 Series – Safety of machinery includes:

AS/NZS 4024.1100:2014  –  Safety of machinery – Application guide

AS/NZS 4024.1201:2014  –  Safety of machinery – General principles for design – Risk assessment and risk reduction

AS/NZS 4024.1302:2014  – Safety of machinery – Risk assessment – Reduction of risks to health from hazardous substances emitted by machinery – Principles and specifications for machinery manufacturers

AS/NZS 4024.1303:2014 –  Safety of machinery – Risk assessment – Practical guidance and examples of methods

AS/NZS 4024.1401:2014  –  Safety of machinery – Ergonomic principles – Design principles – Terminology and general principles

AS 4024.1501-2006 (R2014)  –  Safety of machinery – Design of safety related parts of control systems – General principles for design

AS 4024.1502-2006 (R2014)  –  Safety of machinery – Design of safety related parts of control systems – Validation

AS 4024.1502-2006 (R2014) – Safety of machinery – Design of safety related parts of control systems – Validation

AS/NZS 4024.1503:2014 – Safety of machinery – Safety-related parts of control systems – General principles for design

AS/NZS 4024.1601:2014 – Safety of machinery – General principles for design – Risk assessment and risk reduction

AS/NZS 4024.1602:2014 – Safety of machinery – Interlocking devices associated with guards – Principles for design and selection

AS 4024.1603-2006 (R2014) – Safety of machinery – Design of controls, interlocks and guards – Prevention of unexpected start-up

AS/NZS 4024.1604:201 – Safety of machinery – Design of controls, interlocks and guarding – Emergency stop – Principles for design

AS/NZS 4024.1701:2014 – Safety of machinery – Human body measurements – Basic human body measurements for technological design

AS/NZS 4024.1702:2014 – Safety of machinery – Human body measurements – Principles for determining the dimensions required for openings for whole body access into machinery

AS/NZS 4024.1703:2014 – Safety of machinery – Human body measurements – Principles for determining the dimensions required for access openings

AS/NZS 4024.1704:2014 – Safety of machinery – Human body measurements – Anthropometric data

AS/NZS 4024.1801:2014 – Safety of machinery – Safety distances to prevent danger zones being reached by upper and lower limbs

AS/NZS 4024.1803:2014 – Safety of machinery – Safety distances and safety gaps – Minimum gaps to prevent crushing of parts of the human body

AS/NZS 4024.1901:2014 – Safety of machinery – Displays, controls, actuators and signals – Ergonomic requirements for the design of displays and control actuators – General principles for human interactions with displays and control actuators

AS/NZS 4024.1902:2014 – Safety of machinery – Displays, controls, actuators and signals – Ergonomic requirements for the design of displays and control actuators – Displays

AS/NZS 4024.1903:2014 – Safety of machinery – Displays, controls, actuators and signals – Ergonomic requirements for the design of displays and control actuators – Control actuators

AS/NZS 4024.1904:2014 – Safety of machinery – Displays, controls, actuators and signals – Indication, marking and actuation – Requirements for visual, auditory and tactile signal

AS/NZS 4024.1905:2014 – Safety of machinery – Displays, controls, actuators and signals – Indication, marking and actuation – Requirements for marking

AS/NZS 4024.1906:2014 – Safety of machinery – Displays, controls, actuators and signals – Indication, marking and actuation – Requirements for the location and operation of actuators

AS/NZS 4024.1907:2014 – Safety of machinery – Displays, controls, actuators and signals – System of auditory and visual danger and information signals

As you can see there are many parts to this standard. Many of the technical enquires we receive stem from this standard.

Answering these enquiries is not as straight forward as we might like it to be. Recently we were asked where the Plant Assessor requirements relating to two handed controls came from. To provide a comprehensive answer to this question, we had to start with AS 4024.1201, and then follow the 29 individual references to two handed controls as well as 4 whole parts of the standard covering controls.

There have been additional parts added to AS 4024 covering specific types of machinery that were originally covered by their own standard. Conveyors are a good example. Conveyors were previously covered by AS 1755, they are now covered by AS 4024.3610, 3611, 3612 & 3614 (I know, what happened to 3613 right? That’s an engineering joke by the way).

Other machine specific parts of 4024 include:

• 3001 – Mechanical power presses

• 3002 – Hydraulic power presses

• 3101 – Milling machines

• 3301 – Robots for industrial environments – safety requirements