Improving farm safety: standards for agricultural machinery just updated

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Ensuring the safety of tractors and other agricultural equipment means ensuring the control systems that are in place work as they are meant to. The internationally trusted set of standards for such systems has just been updated, making it even fitter for the farm.

Tractors and self-propelled ride-on machines used in agriculture and forestry have evolved over the years since Old MacDonald’s days and now feature as many electronic parts and systems as your modern car. A number of these are designed to reduce risks by preventing unintended movements and recognizing errors and other possible hazards, because ensuring the vehicles function correctly is as important as the functions themselves.

The series of standards ISO 25119Tractors and machinery for agriculture and forestry – Safety-related parts of control systems, is widely used by the agricultural industry and its suppliers and has recently been updated. It sets out the general principles for the design and development of safety-related parts of control systems on tractors and self-propelled ride-on machines used in agriculture and forestry. It can even be applied to mobile equipment used in municipalities such as street-sweeping machines.

ISO 25119 helps designers and manufacturers ensure that safety-related parts perform as intended, and covers the system structure, fault detection mechanisms, reliability of components, operating stress, environmental conditions and more.

Dipl.-Ing Hans Jürgen Nissen, Chair of the ISO technical subcommittee that developed and revised the series, said the new edition includes a number of improvements based on feedback from end users.

“The key objectives of the revision were to harmonize ISO 25119 with, and ultimately replace, a European standard, under the Vienna Agreement, thus improving its relevance in the EU regulatory area,” he said.

“What’s more, changes were made to incorporate suggestions from end users, certification bodies and experts involved in standardization to make it more user-friendly, understandable and useful.”

The standards in the series are:

  • ISO 25119-1, Tractors and machinery for agriculture and forestry – Safety-related parts of control systems – Part 1: General principles for design and development
  • ISO 25119-2, Tractors and machinery for agriculture and forestry – Safety-related parts of control systems – Part 2: Concept phase
  • ISO 25119-3, Tractors and machinery for agriculture and forestry – Safety-related parts of control systems – Part 3: Series development, hardware and software
  • ISO 25119-4, Tractors and machinery for agriculture and forestry – Safety-related parts of control systems – Part 4: Production, operation, modification and supporting processes

The ISO 25119 series was developed by ISO technical committee ISO/TC 23, Tractors and machinery for agriculture and forestry, subcommittee SC 19, Agricultural electronics, the secretariat of which is held by DIN, ISO’s member for Germany. It is available from your national ISO member or through the ISO Store.

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