When does machinery need a guard railing/fall protection?

Machinery may have workplaces which are more than 500 mm above the floor. In such cases guard railing is needed to prevent workers from falling off the machinery.   

Often machine manufacturers consider the installation of guard railing to be the responsibility of the customer, the company operating the machinery.  
However, the Machinery Directive is quite clear on this. It requires in section 1.6.2 of Annex I that “Machinery must be designed and constructed in such a way as to allow access in safety to all areas where intervention is necessary during operation, adjustment and maintenance of the machinery.”  

This clearly shows that guard railing where needed is an indispensable part of the safeguarding of machinery. And it also shows that this is the case regardless of whether the workplace is used permanently or only temporarily, for instance, for maintenance work. 

To meet this demand Axelent offers the system X-Rail.

  • This product system will give you a quick and easy way to improve your workplace 

Visit our Safety Hub to get more knowledge about machine safety! 

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Find more resources and Knowledge

Which version of a standard should be applied?

The simple answer is…

How strong must guard fencing be?

“Guards shall resist static and dynamic forces according to the risk assessment.” 

What does “presumption of conformity” mean?

How manufacturers may use a standard as evidence to correctly applied the regulation of EU 

Is it required that access doors in safety fencing always open to the outside?

For machinery this is a part of the risk assessment. Consider the following:

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