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A Rogue Robot Is Blamed For a Human Colleague's Gruesome Death (qz.com)
A new lawsuit has emerged claiming a robot is responsible for killing a human colleague, reports Quartz. It all started in July 2015, when Wanda Holbrook, "a maintenance technician performing routine duties on an assembly line" at an auto-parts maker in Ionia, Michigan, called Ventra Ionia Main, "was 'trapped by robotic machinery' and crushed to death." From the report: On March 7, her husband, William Holbrook, filed a wrongful death complaint (pdf) in Michigan federal court, naming five North American robotics companies involved in engineering and integrating the machines and parts used at the plant: Prodomax, Flex-N-Gate, FANUC, Nachi, and Lincoln Electric. Holbrook's job involved keeping robots in working order. She routinely inspected and adjusted processes on the assembly line at Ventra, which makes bumpers and trailer hitches. One day, Holbrook was performing her regular duties when a machine acted very irregularly, according to the lawsuit reported in Courthouse News. Holbrook was in the plant's six-cell "100 section" when a robot unexpectedly activated, taking her by surprise. The cells are separated by safety doors and the robot should not have been able to move. But it somehow reached Holbrook, and was intent on loading a trailer-hitch assembly part right where she stood over a similar part in another cell. The machine loaded the hardware onto Holbrook's head. She was unable to escape, and her skull was crushed. Co-workers who eventually noticed that something seemed amiss found Holbrook dead. William Holbrook seeks an unspecified amount of damages, arguing that before her gruesome death, his wife "suffered tremendous fright, shock and conscious pain and suffering." He also names three of the defendants -- FANUC, Nachi, and Lincoln Electric -- in two additional claims of product liability and breach of implied warranty. He argues that the robots, tools, controllers, and associated parts were not properly designed, manufactured or tested, and not fit for use. "The robot from section 130 should have never entered section 140, and should have never attempted to load a hitch assembly within a fixture that was already loaded with a hitch assembly. A failure of one or more of defendants' safety systems or devices had taken place, causing Wanda's death," the lawsuit alleges.
A failure of one or more of defendants’ safety systems or devices had taken place, causing Wanda’s death.
That's it. That's all this lawsuit is about, faulty failsafes on industrial equipment that lead to an accident. Probably with merit.
But sure, call it "rogue robots" and "killing"...
It's sounds absolutely terrible, but one of the primary things you learn when doing heavy machinery maintenance is lock out/tag out that renders all related machinery completely inoperable while servicing. It doesn't seem that this was done?
To be clear, if the company maintenance policies prevented her from properly locking or what she was working on, then they certainly do have a suit.
-Styopa
That was my first thought, but then I read beyond the headline. She was working on a section that was presumably locked out properly. This robot was from another section, where no lockout should have been required. Think of it as her working on a house's electrical system. Having shut down the circuit she was working on properly the house was wired wrong so that when removing power from a given circuit it is still powered due to miswiring by the electrician as she got electrocuted.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
When an airplane flies into a mountain, it's a pretty good bet that it's pilot error.
When a robot crushes someone, it's a pretty good bet that someone didn't deactivate the robot before working on it.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
If you are working inside a machine or cabinet, then yes, you'd power it down. Doing routine programming and maintenance in a robotic cell is different though. The robots typically have to be powered up in order to teach or operate them. So when you enter a live cell, you have a lockout mechanism on the safety gate. A properly locked out cell will not let the robots or other equipment in the cell operate in automatic mode, but they are still able to function manually when you allow them to. In this case, either she screwed up and failed to lock out, or someone else screwed up and let a robot in a different zone enter her locked out zone without a safety check.
Someone didn't follow Lock Out Procedures or those procedures were inadequate.
The only possible liability lies with her, or the company, not the robot manufacturers.
For those who don't know what "Lock Out Procedures" means... It is safety protocol that has been used in industry for at least decades in which a person who is going to work near dangerous machinery turns off the power to the system and physically puts a padlock on the switch so that it can not be turned back on. Protocol is that there is only one key to the padlock and the person who placed the padlock carries the key with them. This way the person is responsible for their own safety. If 15 people are working on the equipment there are 15 padlocks hanging off the switch (there are special devices that allow a whole gob of padlocks to placed on a switch.) Lockout can be mechanical in addition to electrical, but the concept is that when something is locked it, it is not physically possible for it to operate. It important to note that control systems are not locked out, actual power sources are, this way even a computer or control system failure can not cause a dangerous condition when something is "locked out".