Machinery safety education at the University of Bath

This paper describes an approach adopted for educating students in the safe design of machinery. The background to safe design and the changes in legislation are introduced. The impact of this change of legislation in terms of complexity, the number of reference points for a designer e.g. Directives and standards, are also described. Based on this change, the paper then introduces how the Packaging, Processing and Machinery Association and the University of Bath approached the teaching and training of design engineers to be able to understand and follow guidelines on the safe design of Machinery. The steps taken and the learning process through the course development are described with the final outcome being a generic course written in conjunction with BSI British Standards on how to assist students to acquire the ability to risk assess machinery and learn about machinery design to help their design capabilities and their applicability to their industrial future.