At the end of November 2008, the members of the German Social Accident Insurance (DGUV) gave the green light for the German public-sector accident insurers to have their interests in the area of standardization represented by KAN in the future, as is already the case for the BGs, the institutions for statutory accident insurance and prevention in the industrial sector.

The public-sector accident insurers stand to benefit considerably from becoming members of the VFA, the Association for the Promotion of Occupational Safety in Europe. KAN has already been involved in certain standards projects which concerned the public sector. Only with the extension of its scope of activity, however, is it now able to address standards projects in the key areas of education and the voluntary fire services.

In 2007, an international group of experts drew up a CEN document concerning biological risks in laboratories. This document, the CEN Workshop Agreement (CWA) 15793, “Laboratory Biorisk Management Standard“, is not uncontroversial, since it contains occupational safety and health requirements which are already regulated at European or national level. It is also questionable whether CWAs are in fact suitable for addressing safety and health issues.

In order to prevent unnecessary exposure of employees and other persons present at the workplace to hazardous substances, manufacturers are obliged to reduce the emissions from their machines at their origin if at all possible. This requirement is not always adequately observed on concrete smoothing machines, with the result that they frequently emit large quantities of harmful gases. EN 12649:2008, the standard governing these machines, urgently requires improvement in this respect.

Between 1997 and 2000, nine European testing and research institutes and two industrial enterprises took part in the CEN/STAR “STSARCES“ (Standards for Safety-Related Complex Electronic Systems) project, led by the French and sponsored by the EU, in order to support the standardization of safety-related parts of controls. The contribution made to the project by the BGIA, the occupational safety and health institute of the DGUV, served as a basis for the EN ISO 13849-1 standard.

In order to enhance storage capacity and/or storage density, channel storage systems employing shuttles are increasingly being used. Owing to the automatic pallet stocking and retrieval processes, these systems present hazards to persons. Possible measures for reduction of these hazards have been developed by the materials handling and warehousing technology committee of experts in conjunction with manufacturers and the market surveillance authorities.