WASHINGTON — The Society of the Plastics Industry Inc. and American National Standards Institute have revised two safety standards under the 151 section, which covers plastics machinery.
The standards cover safety requirements for the integration of robots with injection molding machines (ANSI/SPI B151.27-2013) and for plastics sheet production machinery (ANSI/SPI B151.20—2013).
The robot safety standard addresses the use and integration of robots for injection molding, to minimize hazards to people. The standard integrates safety from three different areas: eliminate recognized hazards by design criteria, establish standard approaches to design and safeguard the point of operation to protect the operator.
The sheet line standards seek to minimize hazards to people. They include updates to reflect changes in technology and provide additional explanatory materials, illustrations and definitions.
"Both standards represent significant and substantive changes from the previous editions," Washington-based SPI said in its Jan. 16 announcement. Both are considered Type-C standards, which mean they contain detailed safety requirements specific to those types of plastics processing machinery.
When an accident occurs, inspectors from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration look at how a company follows industrial safety standards.