The concept of prevention to improve the health and safety of worksites cannot be emphasised enough. This is what protects employers' most valuable business asset - their employees.
In the US alone, in 2005, almost 6000 people died on the job. While this number is around one third of employee deaths in 1971, this is still almost 6000 families that have lost a mother, father or sibling.
While it is every employer's legal responsibility to provide safe and healthy working conditions for their employees, according to Kruben Bennie, Schneider Electric South Africa's product manager machine and low-end control, ensuring workplace safety also makes business sense.
"Employees operating under sound health and safety programmes mean that with incidents of injury and illness going down, insurance costs and workers' compensation payments go down. Concurrently, employee morale goes up, productivity improves, business competitiveness increases, all of which ultimately means that profits go up," says Bennie.
The costs associated with workplace injuries, illnesses and fatalities affect each and every South African. Employees are usually forced to either use their savings or default on payments, putting them at risk of losing homes, cars, and much more. Taking steps to keep employees safe reduces this spiral of debt.
In the machine and control industries, the emergency stop function is intended to prevent or avoid risks that could cause injury to persons or damage either to machines or work in progress. Specific pushbuttons, designed to achieve this function, are used in order to trigger an emergency stop signal.
Schneider Electric's Telemecanique's XB4 range of metal bezel emergency stop buttons is one of the most robust on the market. Tested throughout the entire world and designed to withstand industrial environments, these buttons are ergonomic, robust, reliable and simple to install.
Only one installer required: it has a self-maintaining head and clip-together component system (head, body, contacts, LED light block). Fixing is by a single locking screw for metal bezel ranges.
Bezel ranges covering Ø 16, 22 and 30 mm and three head diameters (Ø 30, 40 and 60 mm) are available - in both plastic and metal. Either the complete product or separate components can be purchased. There are three types of re-settable latching heads, push-pull, turn to release and key release. Illuminated emergency stop buttons have high intensity LED, also available.
The buttons are resistant to mechanical shock and vibration, with shake-proof connection screws so that periodic re-tightening is unnecessary. The quality, robustness and reliability of these buttons are significantly above the levels imposed by the standards.
All trigger action Harmony emergency stops conform to machinery directive 98/37/EC, EN418, ISO 13850 and IEC/EN 60947-5-5. They are tested, certified and approved for meeting the requirements throughout all the continents, including UL, CSA, IEC, CE, JIS and NEMA.
Concludes Bennie: "It has been proven that where employees see that their employers are implementing the best available safety measures to protect them that these companies tend towards superior employee performance, considerably adding to competitive advantage".
For more information contact Kruben Bennie, Schneider Electric South Africa, +27 (0)11 254 6400, [email protected]
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