ABSTRACT
It is widely known that the potential for high severity injuries exists in many automatic production systems, but there are only a few accidents simply because the populations of those systems are still small and their operation times have been short. It has been estimated on the basis of the incident records available that the risk of industrial robots is at the same level as that of power presses (Helander and Karwan, 1988). In Japan, at least ten robot-related fatalities have been reported (Nagamachi, 1988). The increasing complexity of new production systems together with the great number and variety of hazard sources make safety management difficult. More information must be collected and analysed during the design and assessment of these systems and their safety requirements.
