Three minutes with …
… Robin Huang

What role does the topic of standardisation play in China?

The law that came into effect in the middle of last year on safety in pro­duc­tion (“Pro­duc­tion Safety Law of Peo­ples’ Republic of China”) com­pels com­pa­nies to comply with national stan­dards. There are manda­tory stan­dards and those that are con­sid­ered rec­om­men­da­tions.

And what standards are you working on right now?

Fol­lowing the reor­gan­i­sa­tion of stan­dard­i­s­a­tion in China, most manda­tory stan­dards have become rec­om­men­da­tions. Cur­rently, sev­eral Pilz employees are working in Tech­nical Com­mit­tees (TC) to develop new manda­tory stan­dards.

I per­son­ally am a member of sev­eral dif­ferent TCs, including the National Tech­nical Com­mittee 208 on Safety of Machinery Stan­dard­iza­tion Admin­is­tra­tion of China (TC 208). There I am in charge of working group 4, which deals with safe con­trol sys­tems.

How will machinery safety continue to develop in China?

The topic is evolving very quickly and is con­stantly gaining in impor­tance. The will­ing­ness to invest in machinery safety is growing for many rea­sons: The ori­en­ta­tion towards people in pro­duc­tion is a guiding prin­ciple that is growing increas­ingly impor­tant. Sec­ondly, The “Pro­duc­tion Safety Law” is facil­i­tating this devel­op­ment. Thirdly, costs for work acci­dents are con­stantly increasing. And finally, both TC 208 as well as for­eign com­pa­nies such as Pilz have con­tinued to advance the idea of machinery safety over the last 20 years.

What role does Pilz play in this?

Thank to its spe­cialist knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence in safe automa­tion tech­nology, Pilz is making an impor­tant con­tri­bu­tion to the devel­op­ment of this topic in China. In 2004, Pilz was the first for­eign com­pany that became a member of TC 208. With train­ings, sem­i­nars and other ser­vices in the area of machinery safety, Pilz is con­stantly making more people familiar with this topic. We want to con­tinue to raise the level of aware­ness in order to ensure safety at the work­place in this country.