The EU Machinery Regulation will apply from 20 January 2027. It came into force in all member states on 19 July 2023, twenty days after it was published in the Official Journal of the European Union. Machine manufacturers now have time in which to meet the new safety requirements on plant and machinery. The new Machinery Regulation aspires to maintain the high level of safety that was achieved with the implementation of the specifications from the Machinery Directive.
The regulation specifies that autonomous machinery must have a supervisory function that can be identified and operated remotely. In the case of an autonomous machine, it must be possible for an operator to start, stop or bring the machine to a safe state – without having to go directly to the machine and therefore into a potentially dangerous area.
The new regulation continues to cover machinery and related products, but safety components now also include software. It provides greater clarity as to when there is a substantial modification to existing plant and machinery, and therefore a new CE conformity assessment must be conducted. What’s more, it also takes into account the growing importance of Industrial Security and digitisation.
Industrial Security is a mandatory element for the safety of machinery, and no longer open to the interpretation of those placing the machine on the market. Manufacturers will need to draw up appropriate Industrial Security concepts. In this respect, Industrial Security is one of the main themes of the Machinery Regulation. Manufacturers of networked machinery should prepare well in this regard. They will also face demands from other areas of legislation (e.g. Cyber Resilience Act, Radio Equipment Directive).
Cybersecurity is a large focus as within the essential health and safety requirements for the design and construction of machinery or related products in Annex III under point 1.1.9, protection against software corruption is required on the machine, particularly when connecting “devices” (connections to other data sources, e.g. programming devices or network interfaces). In the style of an essential health and safety requirement, the connection of devices is regarded as a potential risk with regard to the modification of machine-integrated software, and the requirement is made that the safety functions of the machine must not be compromised as a result.
The new regulation will focus heavily on the security and safety of machinery, requiring manufacturers to draw up appropriate industrial security concepts that adhere to the guidelines. To learn more about how autonomous off-highway vehicles will be affected by legislation in Europe, attend the 4th Autonomous Off-Highway Machinery Technology Summit, taking place in Berlin, Germany on May 21-22, 2025.
For more information click https://innovatrix.eu/4th-aomt/ or contact info@innovatrix.eu for a full agenda of the event.