Challenges and requirements for the safety compliant operation of reconfigurable manufacturing systems

Reconfigurable machinery systems challenge state-of-the-art engineering processes, especially towards safe design, documentation and operation. Assessments done manually by safety engineers are required after each reconfiguration and reduce the advantages of these agile systems. New approaches are needed to reduce the engineering effort in order to satisfy the demands caused by frequent changes of reconfigurable machinery. This paper analyzes today’s safety related processes, examines safety requirements and challenges, studies existing approaches from academia and proposes a concept for future safety approval processes in accordance to EC directives.