Change Assistant

2. How it works

When standards change, the responsible persons must check on a case-by-case basis whether the documented risk reduction measures still comply with the state of standardisation. Important questions need to be clarified:

• What is the name of the successor standard?
• Where is the applied section in the new standard?
• Has the content of the section changed?
   

Figure 1: Applied standards or other documents in the development of a solution and display of the status of the document
 

Clarifying these issues can be tedious and time-consuming! Safexpert offers the "Change assistant" function. This allows you to complete these tasks in just a few seconds at the click of a mouse:

Figure 2: In the "Status" column, you can see which standards are no longer current. In the context menu, open the new "Change assistant" window

You can access the new function via the "Open Change assistant" menu item:

Figure 3: Adapt the measure to the new requirements and update all changes to standards with a click of the mouse
 

In the Change assistant you can see at a glance:

• the standards sections that were used when developing the solution,
• the section in the subsequent standard,
• the degree of change

The degree of change is entered by the publisher of the data product. The currently available degrees of change mean:

Compare standards sections in full text

If you have purchased the full texts of the standards, you can open the old and the new standard directly next to each other in the appropriate places with a single mouse click:

Figure 4: Safexpert displays both standards texts directly next to each other on the screen with a single mouse click
 

You can then compare the two parts of the standard to check whether the safety measure still fits. If not, adapt the solution directly to the new standard in the "Change assistant" window.
 

2.2 Technical data correlations

The most important thing first: all your project data remains locked in your database! The analysis of which standards sections have changed and how is carried out in your Safexpert version on site based on the data in your internal database. Safexpert only obtains the data required for the selective update analyses from the Safexpert Live Server via web service.

In order for the analyses in your projects to provide correct and up-to-date information, the document structure data on the Safexpert Live Server must be kept continuously up to date. The employees in our "Data Management" department take care of this.

We check twice a day whether new lists of standards have been published in the EU Official Journal. If this is the case, our employees take care of updating the data as quickly as possible. Our data is often already updated before the changes are published on the EU website. At the same time, we update the status of standards and our standards packages on a monthly basis in cooperation with our long-standing partner "Austrian Standards".

2.3 Which modules and additional products do you need?

In order to use the Change assistant, you need:

• At least Safexpert version 8.6 in the "Compact" or "Professional" package - to the package overview
• the data package Machinery Directive (EU) and, if applicable, other data packages, so that the standards or standards sections applied for risk minimisation can be entered
• Additional products of the type "document structure": these contain the preparation of standards or other documents in the individual sections including references to the sections of the predecessor document

Note: If you already own Safexpert, you will find all information on the modules you have already licensed in the "Licence overview" section of the "System" menu under "Options".
 

3 Your benefits at a glance

With the "Change assistant" function, we are setting another milestone in digital support for dealing with standards. In combination with all the other functions available in Safexpert, Safexpert supports you in your quality endeavours in several ways:

• You can keep track of which projects are affected by changes to standards.
• When opening a project, Safexpert informs you about invalid standards and provides information about the successors.
• The Change assistant provides information about which section of a standard has been replaced by which new section.
• If full texts are licensed, you can see the two versions of the standards directly in the appropriate place on your screen. This makes it easier for you to compare and check or adapt your safety solution.
• With a click of the mouse, you can exchange all standards or sections of standards that you have used to develop a safety measure in a single work step

4. Next steps

Posted on: 2024-01-16 (last amendment)

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