Duties and Responsibilities

Duties and Responsibilities of Operators in Europe

The ATEX Directive 1999/92/EC stipulates the duties of operators and employers to protect employees at work in potentially explosive atmospheres. Operators are obligated to define technical and organisational measures to prevent explosions. For this they must, for example, estimate the potential hazard and explosion risk, ensure safe organisation of the work environment and classify the potentially explosive areas into zones in accordance with the applicable directives so as to deploy the devices, which are classed into categories, safely. They are further obligated to create and maintain an explosion protection document.

Directive 1999/92/EC naturally contains further requirements for effective implementation of explosion protection. After correct and proper commissioning of an installation, it must be monitored and serviced so that the installation is kept in a safe condition and all hazards can be ruled out. For this, the expert on site must have product-specific documents (rating plate, operating instructions, EC type examination certificate, EU declaration of conformity, etc.) and generally valid documents (regulations on industrial health and safety, TRBS technical code, standards, etc.) at his disposal. The complete product-specific documentation must be maintained and filed throughout the complete period of use of the operating equipment, and be available to the engineers and technicians tasked with maintenance work on it.