Pilz Develops New Method to Calculate Safety in Manufacturing

CANTON, Mich., Oct. 10, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Risk Assessment is fundamental to the achievement of safety through design of new machinery and for selecting safeguarding and other risk reduction measures on existing machinery.  Risk estimation looks at risk from identified hazards to be qualified and quantified in order to distinguish high-risk possibilities from low-risk possibilities when considering machinery safety.

Pilz Hazard Rating (PHR) is a newly designed system for assigning a numerical estimate of risk based on the formula: PHR = DPH x PO x PA x FE

Where:

• DPH represents Degree of Possible Harm
• PO represents Probability of Occurrence
• PA represents Possibility of Avoidance
• FE represents Frequency and/or Duration of Exposure

PHR is specifically tailored to assess machinery safety so that there is a consistent objective and practical evaluation of factors including:

• The severity of the potential consequence defined by the degree of injury, the nature and frequency of access to the hazard and the duration of time in the danger zone
• The probability of a hazardous event occurring
• The possibility that a person can avoid the hazard in certain specific conditions

Using PHR you can determine risks with increased objectivity and consistency to prioritize risk reduction measures, effectively make decisions on safeguarding investments follow best practices in risk assessments (PHR is compliant with the latest national and international standards), and determine the Performance Level (PL) or Safety Integrity Level (SIL) of a safety related control system.

This rating was developed by the Pilz global team of machinery safety experts using quality reviews of thousands of successful machinery safety projects. Pilz also contributes to and reviews new and emerging standards including ISO 12100:2010 and ANSI B11.0 – 2010.  Additionally, the company based the standard on its international work in more than 40 countries and its participation in all important standard committees.  

SOURCE Pilz Automation Safety