Functional Safety Management & Design
The only design and management tool for Machinery Functional Safety you'll ever need.
Ensure your machines are safe to use throughout their lifecycle starting with getting the initial planning and design stage of the product certification process right. Integrated into Design Risk Assessment in RiskMach Certification, this handy functional safety feature offers a comprehensive tool for identifying safety critical control behaviours and the switching elements relevant to achieving that behaviour whilst managing all risk-related data to ensure all foreseeable risks have been identified and analysed correctly.
RiskMach provides this feature because it is necessary to work in this way (or similar) in order to claim to be designing and working to current best practices as defined in applicable standards. This supports your position as meeting the Essential Health and Safety Requirements at the time of supply and those of other statutory instruments putting duties on the user such as the Provision and Use and Work Equipment Regulations 1998 (PUWER 98).
About Functional Safety
Control systems dictate machine behaviour. Where those behaviours are safety critical, then, the suitability and reliability of those systems must be understood by the designer, modifier and the persons responsible for managing functional safety for the user e.g. maintenance and project management.
Standards in Functional Safety
The parent standard for functional safety is BS EN 61508-1:2010. Derived from this are sector specific standards such as BS EN 61511 for process safety and BS EN 13849-1/2 for machine safety.
Created to logically connect all assets, standards, devices and hazard analysis required in one comprehensive digital platform, it removes the need for messy paperwork and excel files, bringing clarity to your functional safety management or design. It’s the key to achieving compliance with the ISO 13849-1 and part 2, as well as any other functional safety standards for work equipment required nationally or internationally.
Streamline Your Functional Safety Management
The functional safety management tool is a core element of the RiskMach Certification module to support the design and integrates with RiskMach Core to allow for ongoing management of functional safety. It allows you and your team to carry out scenario-based risk assessment analysis using our trademarked HTLTM tool and define simple desired control behaviours. Your design or maintenance engineers can then delve into the detail of switching devices that are relied upon to achieve the desired control behaviours giving them the knowledge needed to make the right choices.
Managing Change in Functional Safety – The Ripple Effect
You could achieve your objectives using a good old spreadsheet in the short term. However, as changes are made by multiple users from different organisations or departments over time it can become impossible to know what is affected by those changes.
With RiskMach as new risks, comments and controls are added somewhere up the hierarchy of data, the change ripples down to highlight areas that require review aiding you in managing a complex problem in change management for both design and use.
RiskMach also keeps a log of changes made and by whom so accountability is not dissolved by ambiguity. Detailed RiskMach PDF reports give you the records you want to store locally or share and are available at the touch of a button.
Relating Design Risk Assessment & Functional Safety
The original design risk assessment is the foundation of the functional safety specifications.
When the design risk assessment (or in the case ongoing FS management, then, the users’ risk assessment) changes this should drive a change through the functional safety specification.
The change management ripple effect helps you to ensure that all input, logic and output devices continue to be derived from a valid design risk assessment.
"When the facts change, I change my mind – what do you do, sir?"
Collaboration at All Technical Levels
With RiskMach, anyone, regardless of their level of technical expertise, can take part in the design risk assessment process and have an influence on the functional safety specification that drives outcomes. Your technical specialists can then engage and define the safety function of the control system.
RiskMach for Functional Safety of Integrated Manufacturing Systems (IMS)
Where you have a group of machines working together in a coordinated manner, linked by a material-handling system, interconnected by controls (i.e. IMS controls), for the purpose of multi-operation manufacturing then functional safety objectives rely on many technologies and interfacing systems. These will include mechanical, hydraulic, pneumatic, electrical, electronic, programmable electronic.
Any safety strategy must consider not only the individual systems (for example sensors, controlling devices and actuators) but also all the safety-related systems making up the total combination of safety-related systems and how they affect overall risk reduction for potential scenarios identified by the design risk assessment.
Safe Cloud Data Storage
All your functional safety information and activities will be collected and kept safe in the RiskMach Vault – a cyber-secure, Cloud-based storage you can access easily at any time.
Microsoft Single Sign-On
Single point of access to your risk assessment and functional safety data for you and your team that allows you to manage access control effectively.
Perfect Solution for IMS
Map out complex machine systems with ease using our intelligent functional safety tool and complete large machine integration projects seamlessly.
What is Functional Safety?
Functional safety is a crucial element of the general safety of any machine. The machine control system that ensures it’s safe for use is dependent on the Safety-related Control System (SCS) functioning correctly. During the design risk assessment of a new product or piece of machinery, functional safety analysis is used to identify and remediate hazards that can pose an unnecessary risk to the user in various scenarios.
Designed by Safety Experts
With an intuitive user interface and powerful functionality, the RiskMach platform is an all-in-one tool that helps you streamline all aspects of your risk management and product certification activities, including functional safety. Created by the machinery safety experts at Spiers Safety Engineering, the cloud-based app is custom-made to target problems experienced by designers, integrators, engineering professionals, manufacturers and safety inspectors every day.
RiskMach integrates many features around strong asset management and project base to give you full visibility of all your technical compliance concerns, including PUWER inspections, risk assessments and product certification. Accessible via any device, anywhere in the world, the Cloud-based app and Android App is the perfect collaboration tool for you and your team.