In the Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC the risk management of the maintenance activities is particularly important, because the operators face several hazardous situations. The safe entrance into the danger zones of the machinery assemblies often requires the isolation from energy sources and the dissipation of stored energies to assure the avoidance of release of energy, the unexpected start-up of the machinery and harmful incidents. In this context conventional well-known procedures, such as Lock Out/Tag Out (LOTO), are widely exploited by the employer. Their actual effectiveness in terms of prevention of incidents depends strongly on the correct application by the operators and currently several dramatic events still occur. So, we present a novel smart system, based on the paradigm of Industry 4.0, which supports the operators and guides the procedure step-by-step with the aim of mitigating the error probability and the consequent risk. The proposed smart system exploits the Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) technology to measure the real-time position of workers through a synthetic-array method. A cloud-based software supervises and manages all activities. Based on the tracking results, it communicates step-by-step to the operators the safe procedures on remote devices such as smartphones and receives feedbacks about the right execution. In this way the de-energization procedure can be carried out in safe way with low level of error risks for all operators involved in the maintenance activity.
An innovative integrated smart system for the safe management of de-energization in maintenance activities of assemblies of machinery
Catarinucci L.;Patrono L.
2021-01-01
Abstract
In the Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC the risk management of the maintenance activities is particularly important, because the operators face several hazardous situations. The safe entrance into the danger zones of the machinery assemblies often requires the isolation from energy sources and the dissipation of stored energies to assure the avoidance of release of energy, the unexpected start-up of the machinery and harmful incidents. In this context conventional well-known procedures, such as Lock Out/Tag Out (LOTO), are widely exploited by the employer. Their actual effectiveness in terms of prevention of incidents depends strongly on the correct application by the operators and currently several dramatic events still occur. So, we present a novel smart system, based on the paradigm of Industry 4.0, which supports the operators and guides the procedure step-by-step with the aim of mitigating the error probability and the consequent risk. The proposed smart system exploits the Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) technology to measure the real-time position of workers through a synthetic-array method. A cloud-based software supervises and manages all activities. Based on the tracking results, it communicates step-by-step to the operators the safe procedures on remote devices such as smartphones and receives feedbacks about the right execution. In this way the de-energization procedure can be carried out in safe way with low level of error risks for all operators involved in the maintenance activity.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
