For more than 30 years, CEN/TC 144 'Tractors and machinery for agriculture and forestry' has been producing standards in the service of agriculture, forestry and gardening activities. CEN/TC 144, whose Secretariat is held by AFNOR, the French national standardization committee, is currently developing 50 projects that are geared towards machine safety and operator protection, taking into account the protection of the environment, technological innovations and efficiency needs.
These documents play an important part in decreasing the risk of accidents for farmers and foresters and in reducing the use of pesticides. They also contribute to the renewal of the machinery fleet, contributing to adapting it to new farming techniques. The standards target as main users not only farmers, foresters and manufacturers, but also public authorities in charge of prevention at work and inspection of machines, insurance companies, research and testing organizations and technical institutes.
About 50% of the standards published by CEN/TC 144 (100) were developed in cooperation with the corresponding ISO/TC 23 'Tractors and machinery for agriculture and forestry'. This is also the case for the new amendment EN ISO 4254-1:2015/A1:2021 ‘Agricultural machinery - Safety - Part 1: General requirements’, which will be published by CEN on 15 December 2021.
The EN ISO 4254 is a very important series of standards for agriculture machinery which currently consists of ten published parts, while four new parts are under development. Part 1 contains common requirements for different types of machinery which are further dealt with by the respective specific parts. These standards are or intend to be – listed - in the OJEU in support of the Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC therefore are a good example of bringing together European requirements with an internationally accepted approach.
The most important change of EN ISO 4254-1:2015/A1:2021 is the improvement of safety of boarding means for operator stations such as steps and ladders, together with new specific requirements for walkways, so that an operator can pass along them safely.
Furthermore, the operator’s manual has been extended to the instructions to maintain safety level when the replacement of some elements (e.g. drive shaft and /or power input connection guard) is needed. A manufacturer must now provide an operator with the information on the specific use of power take-off drive shaft for power take-off-driven equipment.
This amendment also provides basic guidance for risk assessment and determination of performance levels for safety related parts of control systems when determining requirements with related machine specific standards or for hazards not covered by EN ISO 4254-1.
Joanna FRANKOWSKA
jfrankowska@cencenelec.eu
