During the lifetime of a stage machinery that is put into service, it is often subjected to modifications or changes. Hence, at times components or constituent units of existing machinery or assemblies of machineries are replaced or updated, and at other times new machineries may be added to an existing assembly of machinery. The common [...]
A summary of: Safety of machinery - General principles for design - Risk assessment and risk reduction EN ISO 12100:2010 is a standard which focuses on the safety of machinery and how it can be designed with safety in mind to prevent or lower the risks of hazards to people. The standard aims to provide stage [...]
Have you ever thought of what the terms crushing and impact mean when you assess the risks of an installation within the entertainment industry? In the English language, both words have at least two or more meanings (depending on how the word is used) when you look them up. For example, according to the Merriam [...]
Placing machinery in a different environment other than what it was originally designed for is a serious business and never a straightforward process. Other ‘What Blumano thinks about’ articles have touched on the topic of the Risk Assessment: a) as a tool to evaluate the exposure to harm, and b) if one’s company – within [...]
When estimating the probability of occurrence of a risk, one of the elements that needs to be considered among others is the frequency and duration of exposure to the hazard; this factor has a big influence in the output of the risk estimation and it needs to be carefully assessed. Every stage machinery should be [...]
Many years ago, a German Code of Practice named SR2.0, forged three simple abbreviations to describe the technical characteristics of electric chain hoists and the implicit allowed applications: D8, D8+ and C1. D8 is the short for BGV D8 (formerly VBG 8), which is the name given to a German accident prevention regulation published in [...]
It’s safe to say that most European stage machinery manufacturers and owners have heard about a document called a “Declaration of Conformity”. However, we could probably say that not too many are aware that a document called a “Declaration of Incorporation” also exists. For the purpose of this article, let’s call the Declaration of Conformity [...]
If you place a 30 cm wide plank of wood on the floor and call for a volunteer to walk along it, you’ll probably find somebody who is willing to do it. However, if you place the same plank of wood over a ravine that is between two cliffs with a 200 m drop between [...]
You’ve probably heard people claiming, “My hoist is SIL3 – it’s safe”, or "My hoist is SIL3 because I use two encoders", or even "I need all my new winches to be SIL3”. These are some common statements repeated in the industry, but did you know that most of them are irrelevant or just plain [...]
We once had a chat with a rental company - who owned several hundred electric chain hoists about an accident that happened to them. The owner of the company told us that during an installation, part of the chain hoist’s lifting mechanism, which was part of its upper suspension, broke down and the entire machine [...]
