Posted to News on 25th Aug 2018, 10:38
Pilz helps BMW implement safe collaborative robot applications
Pilz has been supporting the BMW Group with conformity assessment and CE marking services to ensure the safety of collaborative robot applications across a number of production sites.
Workstations where humans and robots work together without guards - often called collaborative robots or human-robot collaboration (HRC) - present a particular challenge when it comes to ensuring operative safety. BMW Group in Europe and the USA is trusting in the expertise of Pilz to assist with this: the automation company is conducting the conformity assessment procedures required by law at a variety of production sites of the BMW Group in Germany, England and the USA, from risk assessment through the safety concept and validation, to the CE marking of multiple applications. Pilz signs the final declaration of conformity as an authorised representative, taking responsibility for ensuring that every application meets the requirements of the respective market.
The BMW Group employs flexible robot assistance systems in its production, where workers and robots work together 'hand in hand' in confined spaces - entirely without physical machine guards. While there may be collisions between humans and collaborative robots (cobots), these must never present a danger to the humans. That is why the validation of HRC applications takes on particular importance: the experts from Pilz use a safe and reliable measuring process to determine whether the possible collisions are acceptable in terms of safety. With the BMW Group, as with other customers, Pilz uses the PROBms force and pressure measurement system, which it developed in-house.
Follow the links for more information about the PROBms force and pressure measurement system and machinery safety consulting and engineering services.
