Last edit: 02/08/2023
Machinery safety is often dealing with 2 areas:
– A safe area, free of hazards
– A dangerous one
Historically, the term used to identify the dangerous area is “Hazard Zone” ISO 12100 definition:
3.11 Hazad Zone (danger zone): any space within and/or around machinery in which a person can be exposed to a hazard.
Link to the concept of hazard zone is the term Safeguard and Safeguarding (ISO 12100, definitions)
3.26 Safeguard: guard or protective device
3.21 Safeguarding: protective measures using safeguards to protect persons from hazards which cannot reasonably be eliminated or risks which cannot be sufficiently reduced by inherently safe design measures.
The Safeguards (for example, Interlocking devices, Pressure Sensitive devices, Guards…) are used to separate the safe area from the dangerous one.
Instead of Hazard zone, the term that is now used and that will replace Hazard Zone is Safeguarded Space. One of the first standards to adopt the term was ISO 10218-2:
3.13.3 Safeguarded Space: space defined by the perimeter guarding.
The definition, that will probably be used by the new edition of ISO 11161 (expected in 2020) and of ISO 14119 (expected in 2021) is the following:
Safeguarded Space: area or volume enclosing a hazard zone(s) where guards and/or protective devices are intended to protect persons.
The term is already adopted by 2 new machinery standards in USA: B11.0 and B11.19. Here the definition in B11.19.
3.71: Safeguarded Space: The three-dimensional volume defined by the engineering controls.
Therefore, we expect the term “Safeguarded Space” to be adopted more and more in the future in the field of machinery safety. Unfortunately, until a new edition of ISO 12100 will be available (not foreseen before of 2025!) there maybe confusion in the marketplace. We hope this short article will help in reducing it.