Method for Evaluating Operational Safety of a Workstation

A computer program, comprising machine-readable instructions that, when executed on one or more computers and/or compute instances, cause the one or more computers and/or compute instances to perform a method for evaluating the operational safety of a workstation, wherein the workstation comprises at least one piece of equipment that creates a hazard area in its immediate surroundings, and further comprises a given configuration of protective devices configured to prevent interaction between humans and the hazard, comprising:

• instructions for determining an outer boundary of the hazard area;
• instructions for determining from the outer boundary, based on a given criterion for the reach of a human, off-limits areas that humans are to be denied entry to in order to keep them from reaching into the hazard area;
• instructions for determining, from the given configuration of protective devices, rendered-safe areas that the protective devices render safe with respect to access to the hazard area;
• instructions for subtracting the rendered-safe areas from the off-limits areas so that modified off-limits areas result;
• and
• instructions for determining, based at least in part on the modified off-limits areas, whether operation of the workstation with the given configuration of protective devices is safe.