Founding members Pilz Automation Technology, Festo, Fortress Interlocks, Werma and Troax all made presentations to a diverse audience comprising automotive, paper making & converting, food, packaging, consultative, building materials, material handling and automation sectors. The HSL opened and closed proceedings, giving a unique perspective to what has been a well-received event.
Founder of the group, David Collier (Pilz), says, “Overall, machine safety is not rocket science; it’s about preventing people getting hurt by machines at work. The complicated part comes when safety functions have to be designed, verified and validated - which we seek to demystify during our seminars – but on the whole our aim is to address the wide range of issues, standards and technologies relevant to machine safety. Safety really can improve productivity as well as protect people, and we hope that our pragmatic approach offers some guidance to achieving both without becoming a sales pitch.”
The group was formed in early 2012 as a non-profit organisation with the stated mission “to make sense of safety, to safeguard productivity” via its website and educational seminars.
Amongst the positive feedback received for the first seminar, perhaps the best praise was that the seminars provided a good balance of information without being a sales pitch. “We aren’t just a “product roadshow”, we’re non-profit and educational - this is the spirit of our organisation,” states David.
Amongst the delegate feedback came the following statements:
Dr Richard Garrett of Allen Vanguard, 'I would like to thank the presenters and organisers for such a well planned and interesting day...I look forward to attending future seminars that the Machinery Safety Alliance may organise in the future.'
Roger de Toney of Deal Intact Ltd, 'A useful overview that put a number of issues regarding machinery safety into perspective...will be useful for future activities associated with risk assessment, equipment purchasing, and providing industry guidance.'
Neil Catton of G's Group Holdings, 'Excellent educational detail, very helpful revision from knowledgeable experts'
Keith Mander of Avanti Conveyors, 'Excellent organisation and composition'
Jon Severn of Machinebuilding.net, '...an excellent range of speakers covering a wide range of machinery safety topics - it was particularly useful to have someone from the HSL providing their perspective. The speakers were all knowledgeable experts, with their presentations sticking rigidly to the subject of machinery safety and not drifting into sales pitches. There were ample opportunities for questions, both in the seminar sessions and on a one-to-one basis during the breaks. In addition the venue was a good choice, and the small charge represented exceptionally good value for money'
John Lambert of TRM Packaging, 'Very informative and never boring, all relevant information'
Peter Garrett of EEF, 'Good presentation, wide range of related topics covered at a good level - excellent seminar'
Nicholas Bartmanis of EEF, 'Very informative, impressed by the subject knowledge of each of the presenters'
John Thrower of Cranfield University, 'Good day. Very informative, thank you all'
Neil Procter of British Gypsum, 'Good intro to set the scene, excellent mix of knowledgeable speakers, very useful...ideal venue'
Mark Rust of DS Smith Packaging, 'Good day - good presentation, reinforced what we are already doing. Good venue'
The next event will be held at the Concorde Conference Centre in Manchester on 27th June 2012. For details about this event and how to register, click here.