MILWAUKEE — Manufacturing engineers typically use many different tools when developing and specifying machine safety systems, and it is still largely a manual process. Now, they have a single tool suite to help manage, document and confirm compliance throughout the entire safety development process. The Safety Lifecycle Toolkit from Rockwell Automation gives engineers one environment to complete the entire machine safety lifecycle, as defined in standards ISO 12100, ISO 13849 and ANSI B11:0.
The toolkit includes a new version of the Safety Automation Builder software tool from Rockwell Automation. This is integrated with two other tools – the RASWin software tool from SolidSafe and Connected Components Accelerator Toolkit (CCAT) from Rockwell Automation. Together, these tools guide engineers through steps of the machinery safety lifecycle within one environment, providing documentation to show compliance with international standards. Users can select all elements of an individual safety function, including input, logic and output devices, and will receive SISTEMA (Safety Integrity Software Tool for Evaluation of Machine Applications) calculation files to confirm performance-level requirements are met.
“As part of the safety development process, engineers are required to produce a lot of reports, and the formats can vary widely between individuals, departments, locations and companies,” said Mark Eitzman, manager of Safety Market Development, Rockwell Automation. “The Safety Lifecycle Toolkit helps be sure documentation is consistent and gives users a central location to store all of it, including risk-assessment documents, functional safety specifications and verification and validation plans.”
The integration of the RASWin risk-assessment software allows users with a Rockwell Automation subscription to conduct a risk assessment, define functional specifications and complete safety-system validation within the toolkit. This helps ease the compliance process because documentation is thorough, consistent and standardized from one project to the next.
The integration of the CCAT product selection tool allows users to import a bill of materials from CCAT into the Safety Automation Builder tool to verify that their safety-system concept is compliant according to SISTEMA. This helps evaluate the system in accordance with ISO 13849.
“Since its launch in 2013, the Safety Automation Builder tool has helped over 25,000 users save time when selecting safety devices,” Eitzman said. “Now, with the integration of RASWin and CCAT, engineers can use one tool suite for the entire safety development process and be even more confident they’ve selected the right safety solution.”
The Safety Lifecycle Toolkit is available by downloading the latest version of the Safety Automation Builder software tool. Users can then purchase a Rockwell Automation subscription to the RASWin tool. Current users of the Safety Automation Builder tool will be prompted to upgrade to the latest version.