Industrial, Machinery & Automation
Industrial Machinery and Automation Compliance
Machinery safety, electrical, EMC, functional safety, hazardous location, and market approvals for machinery, automation, instruments and controls, agriculture, mining, and construction equipment worldwide.
The sector
Industrial equipment is regulated for the people who work around it, in every jurisdiction where it's installed.
Machinery and automation equipment is regulated differently from consumer products. The concern is occupational safety: the operator, the maintainer, and anyone near the machine. The regimes reflect that. The EU Machinery Directive and its successor Regulation, the Low Voltage and EMC Directives, functional safety standards like ISO 13849 and IEC 62061, electrical equipment of machines under IEC 60204-1, hazardous location rules under ATEX and IECEx, and their equivalents in North America, Asia, and Latin America together define what a machine has to be, what evidence has to exist, and what marking and documentation must accompany it.
For manufacturers selling globally, the challenge is that industrial regimes are less harmonized than consumer electronics. A machine CE marked for Europe faces a different framework in the US and Canada, national certification in China, Korea, and Brazil, and specific requirements in mining, agriculture, and construction that overlap with general machinery rules. Industrial products also carry radios, batteries, and connected controls now, pulling in the electronics regulatory set on top of machinery safety.
ORBIS Compliance works with industrial manufacturers across the full picture: machinery and functional safety, electrical and EMC, hazardous location, radio and connectivity, and the national approvals and local representation each market demands. Our engineers understand machines as systems. Our regulatory professionals know how each market applies its rules.
Product categories
Industrial and machinery categories we support
- Machinery
Production machinery, packaging lines, material handling, and processing equipment under machinery safety and electrical regimes worldwide.
- Automation
Controllers, drives, robots, safety components, and industrial networking under functional safety, electrical, and EMC requirements.
- Instruments & Controls
Measurement, test, process control, and laboratory instruments under IEC 61010, metrology, and hazardous location rules.
- Agriculture
Agricultural machinery, precision farming systems, and connected equipment under machinery, vehicle, and radio regimes.
- Mining
Mining equipment and electrical apparatus for underground and surface operations, with hazardous location and national mining authority approvals.
- Construction Equipment
Earthmoving, lifting, and site equipment under machinery, noise, emissions, and road-use regulations across markets.
The multi-regime problem
A modern machine lives under five regulatory frameworks at once.
Machinery safety, electrical, EMC, functional safety, and radio each have their own standards, evidence, and sometimes their own certifying bodies. Managing them separately is how the technical file ends up contradicting itself.
Handled by separate specialists
What matters
Handled as one file
The machinery risk assessment and the electrical evaluation describe different configurations.
RISK ASSESSMENT
One product definition drives every evaluation, so the technical file is consistent.
The radio module was added after CE marking and nobody assessed the RED implications.
CONNECTIVITY
Radio, cybersecurity, and EMC requirements are scoped with the machine, not after it.
The CE file is sent to a market that requires national certification and comes back rejected.
MARKET VARIATION
Each market's route is mapped up front: self-declaration, notified body, or national certification.
A control system update changes a safety function and the certificate is silent.
CHANGE
Changes are assessed against functional safety and machinery evidence before release.
How ORBIS is involved
Engineers who read machines as systems, in every market's framework.
Industrial compliance starts with the technical file: the risk assessment, the applied standards, the electrical and control system evaluation, the test evidence, and the instructions and markings. ORBIS engineers help build and review that file against the target markets' requirements, scope the safety, EMC, noise and environmental, and radio testing it needs, and coordinate notified body or national certification where the market requires third-party involvement.
For markets with national machinery or electrical certification schemes, our regulatory professionals manage the approvals, provide local representation, and handle the documentation and translations that industrial approvals demand. Where a requirement is ambiguous for a novel machine, we engage the authority directly.
The technical file and every approval it supports live in ORBIS Intelligent Compliance, with change control that assesses design and software updates against the evidence they affect. For equipment with long service lives and many installed variants, that record is what keeps the fleet compliant.
Questions
Industrial and machinery compliance
Our machine is CE marked. What does the US require?
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The US has no direct equivalent to CE marking for machinery. Workplace safety rules and local electrical codes typically require the machine's electrical equipment to be listed by a recognized testing laboratory or field evaluated on site, to standards such as NFPA 79 and UL 508A. Machine safety itself is addressed through OSHA and ANSI standards. ORBIS maps the route for your equipment and coordinates the evaluation.
Do we need functional safety certification?
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It depends on the machine's safety functions and the markets. Where control systems perform safety functions, ISO 13849 or IEC 62061 evidence is expected under the EU framework and increasingly elsewhere. Third-party certification isn't always mandatory, but the documented evaluation is. We scope what's required for your design.
How do connected features change the approvals for industrial equipment?
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Adding a radio brings radio type approval in every market, EMC reassessment, and in the EU and elsewhere cybersecurity requirements for connected equipment. Adding remote control or software-defined safety functions affects the functional safety evaluation. ORBIS scopes these alongside the machinery file so they're part of the approval, not a surprise after it.
Put the machine into service, legally, in every plant you sell to.
Bring the equipment, its control system, and the markets where it will be installed. We'll map the machinery, electrical, and market approvals and tell you what the technical file needs.
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