The safety of machines has always been a major focus for the ISSA Section Machine and System Safety. Progress has been made in the past, but there are still too many accidents in relation with machines worldwide which not only cause human suffering, but also entail substantial costs for the social insurance systems.

For this reason, the ISSA Section Machine and System Safety invited entries for a safety award to motivate machine manufacturers to pursue machine safety and ergonomics even stronger than before. The Safety Award will be relaunched every three years.

An international jury evaluated the machines which were submitted for the Safety Award according to special criteria, for example unique selling attraction, geographic spread, applicability, risk reduction, added cost for user, ergonomics – to mention only some. It was checked if an innovative technology was applied and a branch-crossing solution was implemented. The exemplary and outstanding solutions of the three winners of the award 2023 have convinced the international jury.

What the winners have in common is a technical safety approach that excludes any severe hand injuries and thus perfectly fits in the international Vision Zero strategy of the ISSA.

The ISSA Section Machine and System Safety is very proud to publish the winners.

Altendorf GmbH: Their Hand Guard™ system is integrated in panel saws and utilizes cameras for advanced hand recognition which leads to an immediate disappearance of the saw blade at any dangerous approach to the blade. This technology is based on specific hand characteristics that have been developed by artificial intelligence. This new approach can be transferred to other machines and has already experienced a wide spread over all regions globally.

Grasselli Spa: Their skinner safety system consists of conductive gloves protected by overwearing isolation gloves. The machine is immediately stopped in case that the isolation glove has been damaged by skinner knives and that the conductive glove thus has contact with the machine. As this system has been on the market for quite some time and that the market presence is accordingly well established, the extra cost of this safety system is fairly low and the impact with a drop down by 90% of respective accidents in the UK extremely remarkable.

Scott Automation & Robotics: The BladeStop™ Safety Bandsaws combine a Glovecheck vision sensing system that detects the colour of the glove, along with a secondary body-sensing system which continuously monitors the operator’s skin. If either glove colour is detected to line up with the trajectory of the blade or skin contact on any part of the body is detected against the blade, the machine is stopped within milliseconds to protect the operator. Being the fastest stopping safety bandsaw in the world means operators can go home with their fingers intact, even when the vision system fails to detect the colour of the operator’s glove. A specific brake mechanism has been engineered to focus on the speed of stopping, which correlates directly to severity of injury. This innovative system is being sold all over the world and utilized in various industry sectors.

The award ceremony will take place at the 23rd World Congress of Safety and Health at Work in Sydney from 27th to 30th of November 2023.

More information on the award and the winners at:

www.safe-machines-at-work.org/safety-award/