Safety of Machinery - Risk Assessment

ISO 14121 is a technical standard developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) that discusses general concepts, principles for design, and applications for the safety of machinery. Designed to help manufacturers comply with ISO 12100 (Safety of Machinery), ISO 14121 focuses specifically on risk assessment techniques that will help mitigate potential risks in the lifecycle of machinery in use.

Impact

ISO 14121 is designed to help protect operators of machinery, in both manufacturing and process facilities. Further standards have been developed that deal with more specific safety aspects or safeguards, while ISO 14121 is an overarching guide on risk assessment techniques to discover and mitigate potential hazards and incidents. Covering what sort of information is required for comprehensive risk assessments, ISO 14121 can be used as a first step in a robust risk management program. The standard encourages facilities to gather expert knowledge and documentation of prior incidents/accidents/events to assess all potential risk. Within ISO 14121, specific techniques are offered for identifying, measuring, analyzing and mitigating risk.

Challenge

With various national safety legislations that manufacturers are currently complying with, international expansion can be difficult. Rules that apply in one country to the process of designing, developing, implementing and operating machinery may not apply in other countries. With the adoption of an international standard like ISO 14121, companies can more easily transfer knowledge between departments, sites and divisions. Determining where to start with a comprehensive risk management program, as it applies to job safety, can be challenging, particularly if machines are already in use. With the ISO 14121 guidelines, machinery can be evaluated before design, or applied to machines currently in use, and risks can be mitigated appropriately at any stage of production.

The Dyadem Solution

The Stature enterprise risk management solution can assist with all aspects of ISO 14121.Its Risk Assessment, Management of Change and Incident Management modules support multiple workflows that can be configured to any corporate standard and provide a global risk register of all risks across the organization. By allowing you to view risk holistically from the start, Stature can help ensure potential risk is addressed efficiently and effectively.  For example, if a valve in a piece of machinery needs to be changed, Stature Risk Management will provide steps for the risk assessment study to be conducted, allowing you to view potential risks of that change and conduct hazard analyses, set up controls, and mitigate risk appropriately.

Stature enables dramatic improvements in risk mitigation and job safety initiatives, as well as early planning and specification of machinery use (before design), through company-wide visibility of risks and quality processes, identified by a continuous improvement approach. This unifies different risk and quality management activities and the related lessons learned in order to provide transparency and continuous communication throughout the risk management process, ensuring better compliance with governing regulations, and enabling companies to conduct business in a safe manner. By applying the principles in ISO 14121, Stature can help organizations comply with ISO 12100 and ensures employees are appropriately protected from hazards on the job.