OSHA Alliance Provides Important Workplace Safety Updates for Technical Guide Assessing Robot Systems
Increasingly, U.S. industries are using robotic technologies to perform dangerous or repetitive tasks, and these systems are becoming more collaborative and mobile in naturel, according to a press release. While these advancements to work and the workplace, they also introduce new workplace hazards for those who work with and alongside them. In 2017, OSHA, NIOSH and the Association for Advancing formed an alliance to share technical knowledge, improve awareness about workplace hazards, appropriate safeguards and identify needed research on the use of “traditional industrial and emerging collaborative robotic technologies.”
Recently, the alliance updated and expanded a chapter in the OSHA Technical Manual on Industrial Robot Systems and Industrial Robot System Safety. The effort has made significant updates to the manual, including up-to-date technical information on the hazards associated with industrial and emergent robot applications, safety considerations for employers and workers and risk assessments and reduction measures. The manual serves to guide OSHA compliance officers as they perform inspections at facilities with robotic systems and provides a technical resource for safety and health professionals overseeing the use of robotic systems in workplaces.
“We value the efforts and expertise of the engineers at the Association for Advancing Automation and the researchers at NIOSH to enhance this important resource,” said Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA Douglas Parker. “Robot use will continue to expand, and employers have a responsibility to assess the hazards these new applications may introduce, and implement appropriate safety controls to protect the workers who operate and service them.”
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