The tool is aimed at industrial machinery designers and integrators, as well as industrial engineers tasked with improving safety on existing machinery. It will help them to meet relevant regulations, standards and directives, and to minimise the risk of injury to employees.
It can also help to produce CE Mark documentation, as well as reducing potential hazards and ensuring compliance with the global ISO 12100 safety standard, which specifies terminology, principles and a methodology for achieving safety in the design of machinery.
“DesignSpark Safety is the first powerful and free risk-assessment tool to be made available in the industry,” says Mike Bray, vice-president of DesignSpark at RS. “In addition to expanding the DesignSpark portfolio, the software delivers exceptionally easy access to a professional solution for all engineers by removing the barriers of cost and complexity. Embedding safety into their product development enables the streamlining of designs and the avoidance of costly retrofit solutions.”
The embedded software comes with support materials, and provides designers with a risk score for their planned product development.
The free DesignSpark Safety tool helps machine-builders to assess risks
RS says that DesignSpark Safety can cut costs by removing the need for potentially costly external consultants to carry out detailed risk assessments. Although spreadsheet templates are often used as a more affordable alternative to consultants, they do not always provide enough detail or the relevant documentation, it points out.
The development of DesignSpark Safety has been supported by the safety equipment suppliers, Schmersal and 3M.
The software is available as a free download to members of the RS DesignSpark community. The initial release is in English. This will be followed by other versions, including French, German, Japanese and simplified Chinese.
