Engineering grade articles on industrial robot LOTO, ANSI R15.06, ISO 10218, ISO/TS 15066, and OSHA 1910.147 compliance for West Michigan manufacturers.
August 5, 2026
The fence is not the safeguard, the door is. ISO 14119 device types 1 to 4, coding levels, when guard locking is required, the series-wiring fault masking trap, and how to design defeat out of a cell.
July 29, 2026
Who owns robot cell safety once the integrator drives away? How the 2025 revision of R15.06 splits the duties across three parts, the new Part 3 for the end user, the three handoffs that fail most often, and why OSHA cites the employer no matter who built the cell.
July 22, 2026
A robot cell safety function has to keep working through a component failure. How ISO 13849-1 turns that into a Performance Level: deriving the required PLr from the risk assessment, Category 3 versus 4, MTTFd and diagnostic coverage, and why PLd maps to SIL 2.
July 15, 2026
Teaching is the one routine task that puts a person inside a live robot cell. How manual reduced speed (T1) and the 250 mm/s limit, the three-position enabling device, and the ISO 10218-1:2025 changes keep it controlled, and why teach mode is not a substitute for lockout.
July 8, 2026
A robot cell has many energy sources and many people servicing it, so one padlock is not enough. How OSHA 1910.147(f)(3) group lockout, the group lock box, and the primary authorized employee protect every worker, and the gaps we find on audits.
June 24, 2026
Removing the fence moves the safety case onto sensing and risk assessment. Why fenceless is not collaborative, where the ISO 13855 safety distance comes from, the performance level the safety functions need, and the gaps we find on audits.
June 19, 2026
A weld cell is four machines, not one. The separate weld power feed crews skip, the gun and fixture that close on a hand, when group lockout is required, and the citation patterns we find on West Michigan weld cell audits.
June 3, 2026
A locked-out robot is not a dead robot. Gravity on vertical axes, pneumatic and hydraulic energy, spring-applied brakes, and charged DC bus capacitors, and how OSHA 1910.147 requires each one controlled before service.
May 27, 2026
Selecting, mounting, and validating presence-sensing safeguards. Resolution, ISO 13855 safety distance, muting versus blanking, control-reliable circuits, and the integration gaps we find most on audits.
May 20, 2026
A palletizer cell is not one machine. The energy sources most procedures miss, the jam-clearing trap, gravity and suspended loads, group lockout, and the six gaps we find most on West Michigan palletizer audits.
May 13, 2026
The engineer's view of ISO/TS 15066. The four collaborative operation methods, biomechanical force and pressure limits, and the five compliance gaps we find on most fenceless cobot audits.
May 6, 2026
How the three governing standards for industrial robot cells actually fit together, the documentation stack that holds up to OSHA inspection, and the five gaps we find on most West Michigan audits.