Industrial Robot Safety in China: Questions for Executives
Prepare industrial robot diligence questions on task boundaries, human interaction, intervention records, maintenance and responsibility for site safety.
Robot safety depends on the complete application: the machine, tooling, task, surroundings and people who interact with it. A product demonstration cannot validate a different factory installation. An executive visit should identify the qualified people responsible for risk assessment, acceptance and ongoing operation, and ask what evidence they use.
What to evaluate
Hazard context
Understand people, equipment, materials, workspace and foreseeable misuse.
Control system
Inspect limits, sensing, stops, guarding, access and safe degraded modes.
Evidence
Review testing, incidents, near misses, interventions and changes after deployment.
Transfer
Identify destination standards, workforce practice and integration differences.
Worked evaluation exercise
The following is an illustrative assessment exercise, not a reported customer result.
For a proposed material-transfer application, map where workers load, clear faults and perform maintenance. Ask the host's safety specialists to explain how those modes differ from normal operation and what changes require reassessment. Review anonymised intervention and maintenance records rather than asking delegates to test protective equipment themselves. Carry unresolved integration questions into a site-specific engineering review before discussing deployment approval.
Questions for the operating team
- What event triggers a safe stop?
- How are near misses investigated?
- Which safety claim depends on the staged environment?
Warning signs
- Athletic capability treated as workplace safety.
- No intervention records.
- Responsibility split unclearly between integrator and operator.
Planning the visit
Use these questions to scope an industry-focused China AI program. Agree which records and operating workflows can be examined before confirming meetings; host participation and access require confirmation. Our research method explains how we structure the brief and follow-up.
References and scope
These references provide policy or risk-management context. They do not independently verify a host's performance or the illustrative exercise above.