AiME Motion Systems Safety Committee meeting was held at Western Michigan University Thursday, October 3, 1996. Members attending the meeting
Charles Bartel, Jr. - Moog Inc.
Stuart Goodnick - Parker Hannifin
Wil Nonnenmacher - Eveready Battery Co., Inc.
Dr. Frank Severance - Western Michigan University
Fred Z. Sitkins, Committee Chairman - Western Michigan Univ.
Monte Swinford - Vickers
Committee members not in attendance:
Guest invited but not in attendance:
Call to Order
The meeting was called to order by F. Sitkins at 9:15. F. Sitkins passed out a safety committee list of members and guests for today´s meeting, asked
for corrections/additions to members data. (Attachment 1) Committee Organization
F. Sitkins indicated that C. Bartel would take meeting notes as committee secretary.
Accepted by agreement. W. Nonnenmacher will be gatekeeper for today's meeting. Meeting agenda submitted for approval, accepted by committee. (Attachment 2) Minutes of July 29, 1996 meeting submitted (Attachment 3)
and reviewed by C. Bartel. Accepted by committee. AiME Resolution
Empowering proposal submitted to the AiME Board of Directors (Attachment 4) was read and discussed. Of
specific interest were the Committee's Charter and the Purpose of the committee. For information the two sections read:
"Be it resolved that an American Institute of Motion Engineers Safety Committee be established as a standing committee of the organization. This committee to be charted to:
- review existing safety standards relative to motion control,
- suggest revisions to these standards to the governing organizations as appropriate,
- to promote additional standards,
- to monitor the industry and revise the standards as necessary to reflect new technologies."
"The purpose of this committee is to provide industrial guidelines for the safe and orderly development of motion control products and the implementation of safe motion control systems, in all operating
environments, including industrial automation, entertainment venues, etc."
Brainstorming the Issues
F. Severance lead a discussion on several issues. Highlights of this discussion included:
- There seems to be a concern among NEMA members that AiME is entering into the world of generating standards. This is different than the perception that AiME presented during the establishment of AiME. What can
the committee do to turn this perception into a positive working relationship. Phone call with Bill Rolland on Oct. 2 was C. Bartel´s effort to address this issue. It was a positive conversation that centered
around the two groups working together. AiME would rather work with other organizations rather than itself be a standard body.
- Telephone conversations with IEEE and ISO were held by F. Severance. The discussions were positive.
- Response to safety article by Phil Kingsley has been very good. A number of people have faxed or called the AiME office to be part of this activity. A number of these contacts seemed to have come out of the
robotics industry.
- Mr. Fred Hill, Oriental Motors corporate lawyer and international law practitioner identified as possible committee lawyer. Dan Jones was to talk to him before they left for their after MotionExpo trip.
- General discussion on how does a standard get generated/accepted? In Europe, a requirement is identified and a committee established to create a responsive specification. Once created, it exists as a floating
specification in modification. In Europe, because of economic conditions, they recognize that standards would be needed to generate free trade between countries. Due to these unique economic conditions, some
standards are required/enforced by law. Standard activity has been in process since mid 80´s. Because conformance to specifications in the US is generally voluntary, US specifications are somewhat isolated from
European standards.
- In Europe, there are specific specifications for some components. However, in absence of specific specifications for a product, then general specifications come into play. It is confusing to North American
suppliers to identify the applicability of these general specifications.
- CE rating is a self certifying process. Manufacturing companies which simply place a CE mark on a product without sufficient documentation to prove its performance can face significant fines.
- Discussion on the relationship of ISO and IEC organizations. CE standards (European standards) seem to be coming out of IEC.
- F. Severance did a review of the WEB sites and presented a listing of organizations that are involved in standardization. (Attachment 5)
- From F. Severance´s review and the review of others, there does not seem to be any specific standards relative to servo motors.
- After reviewing the subcommittees of these organizations, if was noted that AiME is not alone in addressing safety issues. However, in Europe, there is less reluctance to address safety head on (i.e., less
disclaimers concerning the use of the specifications). We assume this is because Europe does is not embroiled with the same number of liability suits and concept of "catch all defendants" as we see in the States.
- Several EN specifications were noted. Questions placed on the table: who controls these specifications, who is the governing body? Are these European Normalized rules?
- As a summary of this discussion period it was agreed that if AiME were to release a new specification in the United States, the first step is to generate a working draft (internal distribution only), submit for
a legal review within the organization (emphasizes the need for legal representation as part of the steering committee), publish/distribute draft for public review, and finally submit for voting/acceptance
Frank proposed and committee members enlarged the following list of standard making/releasing, enforcing organizations that we should establish contact with in our search for cooperative issuance of a new standard(s).
- ANSI - American National Standards Institute
- NIST - National Institute of Standards and Technology
- IEEE - Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers
- ISO - International Organization for Standards
- IEC
- NEMA - National Electrical Manufacturers Association
- CEN
- CENLEC
- OSHA - Occupational Safety and Health Agency (may not set any standards, but enforce regulations as specified by Congress - Does that mean we should be contacting safety committees of the House and Senate?)
- UL - Underwriters Laboratory
- FM - Factory Mutual
- NFPA - National Fire Protection Agency
- NFPA - National Fluid Power Association
- JISC - Japan Industrial Safety Committee
- CSA - Canadian Standards Association
- *SAE - Society of Automotive Engineers
- *ASME - American Society of Mechanical Engineers
- *DIN - Deutsches Institut fur Normyumeg
- *BSI - British Standard Institution
Note: * added by C. Bartel after internal Moog review.
F. Severance will continue his search of data on the WEB to identify technical committees and subcommittees of the above organizations which are working on safety related activities. He will also arrange for copies
of pertinent documents. MS and NASA specifications may have applicability in the industrial environment, but who generates these specifications? In order to identify all working committees, this committee should
contact the above organizations to:
- Identifying ourselves and our activity
- Ask for information on any committee that is dealing with safety issues.
This committee should generate a press release (originally to be held back until a later date but changed for immediate release). This press release provide a summary or our charter (from the AiME resolution) and
would be submitted world wide to technical magazines and newspapers. Fred will generate this press release and send it around for review. Each committee member to get approval from their companies for publishing of
committee member names and/or affliction. In order to keep AiME members and other interested parties updated on current activities, the committee meeting notes will be placed on the AiME WEB site, with a option for
follow up messages to the committee. Attachments to the meeting notes will not be placed on the WEB. (Some are purchased copies of existing specifications, etc. These would be available as hard copy with appropriate
charges). Meeting minutes will also be available through AiME at $1.20 per page, $15 for one set. W. Nonnenmacher presented a summary of Applicable Standards for Motion Control Safety for discussion. A second handout
was selected pages from Scientific Technologies Inc., SafeBook2, Machinery Safety, Part #44512-0350 (Tel 1.800.221.7060, 510.608.3400, Fax 510.744.1442). During this presentation, safety issues that were identified as
critical but not always straightforward were: status of emergency stop (synchronization stop vs. immediate power removal), guard doors positions during emergency shutdown. M. Swinford will provide a report at the next
meeting which is a summary of how you go about releasing a standard. Will include a flow chart and start with ANSI and a review of ISO practices. In general, the process follows the following flow:
- Start with a clear purpose/definition.
- Generate a committee draft, not for general distribution.
- Draft standard, which becomes public knowledge, but still a draft.
- Recommend the use of hard metric in any specification.
- Following release of public document, begin ballot process.
- Release/maintenance of specification.
A list of Hazards, the potential that would generate the hazard, and any additional notes associated with the hazard cause was generated.
- Uncontrolled motion
- Unexpected Power Loss
- *Unexpected Start up
- Software failure
- Hardware failure
- feedback failure
- fault detection
- Emergency Stop, operator generated
- Emergency Stop, system generated
- Normal power removal
- System configuration
- EMI
- Thermal
- Exposed components hazard
- Fire potential
- Performance variations
- Electrical
- Shock
- Grounding
- Fire
- Cascading failure
- Noise Generation
- Mechanical
- Geometry of equipment, i.e. sharp edges
- Machine integrity
- Machine guards
- Contamination
- High Pressure Distribution Failure
- Hardware failure
- Vibration effects
Conditions under which hazards can occur were identified as:
- Configuration or system development
- Normal Operation
- Serviceability
This list to be placed in open discussion via AiME´s WEB site and AiME High. Questions to be included in the release:
- Is this list conclusive, if not what has been left out?
- If it is, how would you like to contribute?
S. Goodnick was asked to put together a definition of people to be part of this program and how they can contribute. Steering committee to be composed of low number of individuals,
traveling to regular meeting. Larger group of individuals to part of specific subcommittees, participating through e-mail, Internet, surface mail, round table conferences, etc. to contribute/generate material, provide
review of submitted material and draft specifications. Members of subcommittees to be recruited from volunteers generated as a result of articles, etc.Comment made that we might be "Adopted as a group or individual
members to another group working on safety." Individuals to pick an organization to work with. C. Bartel volunteered to interface with NEMA. Specific recruitment of additional steering members as follows:
- M. Swinford to contact Auto industry and small machine industry for core members.
- C. Bartel to address aircraft/entertainment.
- C. Bartel/F. Sitkins to address lawyer requirement
- S. Goodnick to look for a high tech distributor.
Action Items
- All to review/add to the Hazards list
- All to generate notes/references of known specifications, etc.
- F. Severance will continue WEB site activity
- F. Sitkins will work on press release to industry and a letter to other organizations
- W. Nonnenmacher to review original presentation for Spring issue. Also to establish the format for presentation to the user public.
- Can we identify any organizati
ons addressing safety issues?
- Steering committee to identify initial subcommittees, list to be submitted to F. Sitkins by December 15.
Per the AiME resolution, submitting request for grants, etc. to support an independent chairman will take sufficient time and would preclude F. Sitkins from attending meetings in some locations. It was
decided that for the immediate future, meetings will be held at Western Michigan University. Next meeting will be Thursday, February 6. Meeting was closed at 4:20 PM. Notes:
- Acceptance by agreement indicates that item/issue was presented to the committee and accepted without specific vote or modification.
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