A Review of Machinery Safety in the Pulp and Paper Industry

The paper industry is subject to international and national standards in the field of Safety of machinery/Machine safety. IEC, ISO, UL, OSHA, NFPA and ANSI specify safety requirements for equipment and engineering procedures, and European standard EN 1034 specifies additional protective measures specifically for paper machines. Safety functions for adjustable speed drive systems include Safe Stops, Safe Torque Off (STO) and Safely-limited Speed (SLS), intended for “Minor Service Exception for Lockout/Tagout”. Machine safety also comprises emergency stops, safety gates with “prevention of unexpected start”, light barriers and start warning sirens. All safety functions are controlled and supervised by a certified safety PLC. Response from various machine installations conclude that: “Well-engineered machine safety solutions have proven to result – not only in safer machine operation, but also in higher machine availability and productivity.”