Emergency stop update Plant Assessor wide

As always such enquiry prompts the Plant Assessor Intellectual Property department to review the current situation. Whilst we have been providing the appropriate information from Australian Standard 4024:1604 Safety of Machinery – Design of Controls, Interlocks and Guarding – Emergency Stop there is an opportunity to improve the information provided.

There are two important components to the installation of emergency stops on machines –

Emergency stops have always posed a challenge for Plant Assessor as the installation of the device is specific to every machine, environment and use combination. The design of the Plant Assessor software does allow us to provide very specific information for individual makes, models and owners however it is impossible for us to know how an emergency stop device is set up for every machine. As a result today we provide information from the Australian Standard regarding all emergency stop installations as per point 1 above but not the actual detailed information regarding the specific installation for an individual machine. 

The following additional information has now been incorporated into the Plant Assessor risk assessment process.

The emergency stop function shall –

• Be designed so as to meet the requirements of AS4024:1604 Design of controls, interlocks and guarding – Emergency stop – Principles for design (ISO 13850:2017 (ED 3.0), MOD)

Additionally all operators should be familiar with the placement and actuation method of the emergency stop device as well as the resulting effect on the machine from actuation of the emergency stop device fitted to an individual machine. 

As always if you have any questions regarding the information in this article please contact the friendly team at Plant Assessor.