Machinery Safety Testing

Regulation (EU) 2023/1230 is the EU's new machinery safety law. Adopted by the European Parliament and the Council on the 14th of June 2023, it fully replaces the Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC as of the 20th of January 2027. Demonstrating compliance with the Machinery Refulation is part of the CE marking process for work equipment and machinery sold on, or supplied to, the EU and European Economic Area (EEA) markets. 

The purpose of the Machinery Regulation sets the health and safety bar that machinery, related products and partly completed machinery must clear before they can be sold or used anywhere in the EU.

It aims to eliminate or minimise the potential for equipment to cause hazardous circumstances, and sets out procedures for conformity assessments.

The Machinery Regulation applies to new and significantly modified machinery, and equipment used in the workplace. That includes any assembly of linked, moving parts, joined together for a specific job, and powered by something other than a person or animal pushing, pulling or lifting it directly.

Alongside machinery itself, the Regulation covers five categories of "related products":

• Interchangeable equipment
• Safety components
• Lifting accessories
• Chains, ropes and webbing
• Removable mechanical transmission devices

• Partly completed machinery is also covered.
• It does not include:
• Safety components supplied as identical spare parts by the original manufacturer
• Equipment for fairgrounds and amusement parks
• Machinery for nuclear installations, where compliance could undermine nuclear safety
• Weapons, including firearms
• Means of transport by air, water or rail, except machinery mounted on them
• Motor vehicles and trailers, two/three-wheel vehicles, quadricycles, and agricultural or forestry tractors already covered by their own EU type-approval Regulations, except machinery mounted on them
• Motor vehicles built exclusively for competition
• Seagoing vessels, mobile offshore units, and machinery installed on board them
• Machinery specially designed for military or police purposes
• Machinery for temporary use in research laboratories
• Mine winding gear
• Machinery intended to move performers during artistic performances
• Certain electrical and electronic products already covered by the Low Voltage Directive (2014/35/EU) or the Radio Equipment Directive (2014/53/EU), for example household appliances, audio/video equipment, IT equipment, and low-voltage switchgear and control gear

The following parties are responsible for compliance with the Machinery Regulation:

• • Manufacturers, including those producing equipment for in-house use
  • Parties modifying existing machinery so that it can be considered ‘new’ equipment
  • Importers bringing non-CE-marked equipment into the EU or EEA for the first time