Rockwell Automation releases Safety Maturity Index tool for machine builders

Few machine builders use safety to differentiate their machines from the competition. However, safety can add greater value to machines by helping end users comply with modern standards and significantly improve productivity. To help machine builders bring best-in-class safety to their machine designs, Rockwell Automation has released its Safety Maturity Index for Machine Builders tool.

The tool provides a self-guided assessment for machine builders to measure their performance in the three pillars of industrial safety: culture (behaviour), compliance (procedure) and capital (investment in contemporary technology). Machine builders that achieve peak performance in each of these areas can optimise safety and productivity in their own operations, use that expertise to develop better machine designs and improve the value of their machines to customers.

“Machines with best-in-class safety deliver performance benefits that help end users cost-justify a higher value machine,” said Paul Costantin, business manager, safety components, Rockwell Automation. “In turn, machine builders can differentiate their offerings and rise above the competition. They also can create new revenue streams leveraging their safety expertise, such as risk assessments and training services.”

Using best safety practices also helps machine builders meet the compliance needs of multinational customers that use the most stringent global safety standards. This helps machine builders reduce their own product liability risk and futureproof their offerings as regional machine safety standards continue to harmonise towards these global standards.

The Safety Maturity Index (SMI) for Machine Builders tool measures and reports a machine builder’s performance in each of the three safety pillars on a scale of one to four — SMI 1: minimising costs, SMI 2: legal compliance, SMI 3: operator safety and SMI 4: customer value. The tool also provides insights into which areas need the most improvement. Machine builders can use the tool to identify inconsistencies between facilities and benchmark themselves against peers.

The tool is applicable to any industry, any company size and any location. It also aligns with the Safety Maturity Index tool designed for end users, which has been widely used by manufacturers since its release in 2013. Information shared in the tool is confidential. Each company’s profile is not associated with its response or results.