October 2024
Safety Award 2025
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www.stop-defeating.org
Against the background of global markets, the problem of defeated protective equipment is not limited to individual countries. An international exchange of information on this topic is therefore useful and necessary.
With the information on this website, the ISSA Section Machine and System Safety contributes to an open discussion on the subject of defeating in companies. These discussions can be the basis for further solutions to avoid incentives for defeating in the future and thus to prevent defeating of protective devices. International experts from various countries are working together in the Project Group "Stop Defeating". The website stop-defeating.org offers cross-industry information and tools for both manufacturers and users of machinery to prevent the defeating of safeguards. The content is available in German and English.
The website, which was first published in 2010, has been completely revised and additional material has been added. The presentation of the information is now aligned to the life cycle of the machine and clarifies which measures must be taken by manufacturers and users to prevent defeating.
Further practical assistance for manufacturers and users can be found in the form of information leaflets and presentations available for download:
- Cross-sector best practice design examples
- Cross-sector examples of tampering-related machine accidents
- Teaching modules
- Educational films
Activities Stop defeating of safeguards on machinery
- Contribute to an open discussion within companies about the issue of defeating safeguards by using the information provided on the website. These discussions are to be the basis for new solutions to avoid incentives for defeating, and thus to render acts of defeating safeguards unnecessary.
- Elaborate a paper on interlocking devices with low coding.
Stop defeating - New explanatory film for machine manufacturers by DGUV
In the world of machines, safeguards are of crucial importance. But what happens when these safety devices themselves become a problem? The new explanatory film is aimed at manufacturers of machines and systems and highlights the challenges associated with defeated safeguards.
Background: People working on machines are exposed to hazards posed by the machines themselves. Safeguards are used to minimize these risks. These are intended to protect employees from the remaining hazards of the machine. Unfortunately, despite the associated risk, these devices are repeatedly dismantled, bypassed or otherwise rendered ineffective. Health and safety experts assume that safeguards are temporarily or permanently manipulated on one in four machines. This results in thousands of accidents at work that can be traced back to defeating.
Challenges: The defeating of protective devices is often related to deficiencies in the machine's safety concept. If the concept is not tailored to the operability of the machine, safeguards are perceived as a nuisance. As a result, important activities such as maintenance, setup, troubleshooting or cleaning of the machine are made more difficult or even impossible by the protective device. This creates a strong incentive for people working with such machines to tamper with them.
Company responsibility: Companies that manufacture are legally obliged to only place and provide safe machines on the market. Machines with a high incentive to tamper are not to be considered safe and must not be operated due to the increased risk. The question of whether or not a machine's safeguards offer an incentive to tamper is therefore highly relevant for both machine manufacturers and operating companies.
The new explanatory film sheds light on these topics and provides suggestions on how manufacturers can ensure that their machines do not provide an additional incentive to tamper with them. This is the only way to effectively prevent accidents at work and ensure the safety of the people who work with these machines on a daily basis.