Evaluation of safety requirements

The analysis and the verification of the work equipment compliance with the Safety Requirements constitutes one of the main obligations for the Employer, expressly prescribed by Art. 71 of Legislative Decree 81/2008 and subsequent amendments.

According to comma 4 of Art. 71 of Legislative Decree 81/2008, the Employer must ensure that the work equipment is:

• Installed and used following the “Instructions for Use”.
• Subject to suitable maintenance to guarantee the permanence of the safety requirements over time, accompanied, where necessary, by specific “Instructions for Use and Maintenance” booklet.
• Subject to updating measures, the minimum safety requirements concerning product changes and with the degree of evolution of the prevention and protection technique.
• Equipped with control register kept updated continuously.

The same Legislative Decree 81/08 at Art. 70 prescribes the safety requirements of the equipment made available to workers by Employer. From text literature, two classes of equipment are identified:

• Work equipment built in the presence of laws and regulations transposing the current European directives;
• Equipment made available to workers in absence of legislative and regulatory provisions or built before the issue of legislative and regulatory provisions transposing the EU product directives.

The first equipment must comply with the general safety requirements defined by the current Machinery Directive 2006/42/CE; the second equipment must comply with the general safety requirements referred to Annex V of Legislative Decree 81/08 accepting, where relevant for the date of construction, also compliance with Presidential Decree 547/55 or Art. 28 of Legislative Decree 626/94 and subsequent amendments.

Concerning equipment of type b), Art. 2 of Machinery Directive 2006/42/CE also provides for the application of “harmonized standards” in individual member countries, issued by European standardization bodies (for example the European Committee for Standardization CEN). The importance of harmonized standards is then linked to the “presumption of conformity” that they ensure, according to Art. 7 of Directive 2006/42/CE.

The standardized rules concerning machines are divided into:

• Type A standards (general safety standards): they contain the fundamental concepts, design principles and general aspects applicable to all machines (for example, UNI EN ISO 12100: 2010).
• Type B standards (safety standards common to groups): deal with an aspect of safety or a type of safety device, applicable to numerous types of machines, which in turn are divided into:
• Type B1 standards, which concern particular aspects of safety, such as safety distances, temperatures of reachable surfaces, noise (for example, UNI EN ISO 13857: 2008);
• Type B2 standards, which concern safety devices, such as two-hand controls, interlocking devices, pressure-sensitive devices, guards (for example, UNI EN ISO 13850: 2015);
• Type C standards (safety standards for machines): they contain the detailed safety requirements for a particular machine or group of machines (for example, UNI EN 692: 2009, UNI EN 415-7: 2008).