An emergency stop (“e-stop” for short) is designed to avert harm or to reduce the severity of harm in the case of an emergency and is commonly activated by a red mushroom-headed button.
Yes. OSHA regularly cites NFPA and ANSI standards which do require emergency stops on industrial machinery.
No. An emergency stop is a “complementary protective measure”, meaning that it is a last line of defense in case the machine safeguards fail to protect an operator.
No. While many machine manufacturers include mushroom-shaped off switches, these are not emergency stops and do not meet the requirements for being one.
When a hazardous situation presents itself and needs to be quickly averted, every second counts. The last thing you want in that situation is a hard to reach or difficult to press off switch.
They don’t have to be! Visit our website for more information on emergency stops or to explore our easy-to-install emergency stop products.
Additional Resources
- “Emergency Stop – What’s so confusing about that?” A deep dive into everything you ever wanted to know about emergency stop. Provided by Doug Nix of Compliance inSight Consulting.