New Machinery Directive as of 2010

The Machinery Directive(MD) sets out safety requirements for new machines, assemblies of machines, interchangeable equipment and safety components, which must be met before these products can be traded within the European Economic Area. As of the 29th December 2009 the provisions of the new Machine Directive (2006/42/EC) will be applicable. This new Machine Directive includes some modifications to the essential health and safety requirements.

An important aspect within the Machine Directive is the product documentation.
Within the new Machine Directive the traceability of documentation becomes more important than ever. Manufacturers must keep the EC declaration of conformity and declaration of incorporation for a period of at least 10 years from the last date of manufacture. The focus will be on the whole lifecycle of products and its documentation, with special emphasis on operational health and safety issues.

Documentation specialists now face the challenge of creating documentation systems that stand the test of time. During the whole life cycle of a product the documentation has to be adjusted to changes in the product, the context in which it is used and changing perceptions on health and safety issues. Taking into account that all machinery must be accompanied by a translation of the instructions in the language of the country in which the machinery is to be used and by the instructions in the original language, you can imagine that this will lead to a very complex situation.

A structured documentation process in combination with the appropriate tools can help us solve these issues:

  1. Set up a linear process for the creation of all documentation products, involving all necessary steps from defining the goal, audience and context of the product and its documentation to the final pretest and translation of the documentation products.
  2. Set up processes for updating the documentation products, including the translations.
  3. Choose appropriate tools for the authoring process, taking into account that technical writers, illustrators, subject matter experts and translators have to work in a shared environment.
  4. Choose appropriate tools for the publishing process: depending on the product type and user group you will have different media. Electronic products typically feature on-line help in combination with a printed manual. In addition to these documentation types, instructions can be published on websites.

Please feel free to post you experiences with these kind of challenges!

Comments

Anonymous said…
Compliance to the Safety Machinery Directive is enforced by the law in order to protect both manufacturers and consumers. It assures that safety measures have been undertaken to provide high quality standard of production.
June 12, 2009 at 2:49 PM
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