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On 15 February 2025, Austrian Standards published a draft standard for EN ISO 20607 (Safety of machinery – Instructions – General principles for design (ISO/DIS 20607:2025). This article provides insights into the main innovations in the draft standard compared to the previous 2019 edition.
Please note: Due to comments from users, the final version of the standard may differ from the present draft. As soon as we have new information about the standard, this article will be revised in a timely manner. Subscribe to our newsletter, the CE-InfoService, and ensure that you will no longer miss any relevant news!
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When will the new EN ISO 20607 be published?
The follow-up project ISO/DIS 20607 is currently in the so-called enquiry phase. The current status ‘DIS ballot initiated: 12 weeks’ means that the international draft standard was confirmed on 7 February 2025 and that comments can be submitted during the following 12 weeks starting from this date.
On 15 February 2025, these draft standards were published by the national standardisation organisations (DIN for Germany and Austrian Standards for Austria) for public commenting. Standards users in Austria can comment until 11 April 2025.
The standardisation request from the EU Commission to CEN/CENELEC had previously appeared on 20 January 2025, calling for the development of harmonised standards for the new or amended requirements of the Machinery Regulation (EU) 2023/1230. The deadline for the latest adoption of this standard by CEN/CENELEC (as for all other standards of the mandate) is set for 20 January 2026, exactly one year before the new MR comes into force. Thus, the new, final edition of the EN ISO 20607 standard can be expected by this date at the latest.
For further information on this topic, please refer to the technical article ‘New Machinery Regulation: Status of harmonised standards’.
What does the EN ISO 20607 standard for instruction handbooks cover?
As a type-B standard for the safety of machinery, EN ISO 20607 deals with the basic requirements that machine manufacturers in particular must take into account for the safety-related components of an instruction handbook.
The harmonised standard:
It is not a general guide to creating technical documentation, but focuses specifically on safety-related content in machine operating instructions. This distinguishes it in particular from the technical standard EN IEC/IEEE 82079-1, which is a much more comprehensive document covering technical communication in detail.
Details on which of the two standards machine manufacturers should ideally use can be found in Martin Rieder's technical article on ‘Operating instructions for machines’.
What does the legislation require with regard to instruction handbooks for machines (and related products)?
The obligation to create operating instructions is defined by both the Machinery Directive and the new Machinery Regulation :
Specifically, with the new Machinery Regulation (EU) 2023/1230, there is also the option of providing the documents in digital form with effect from 20 January 2027 – a regulation that was introduced in the course of the new Guide to the Application of the Machinery Directive (version 2.3),
For more information, refer to Stefan Winkler's article ’Digital operating instructions and declarations of conformity for machines’.
What will change with the new EN ISO 20607:2025 ?
First of all, it should be noted that the amended contents of the draft standard are not yet final. Changes may still be made (especially in the course of public comment) before the final standard is published.
In the following, we have listed what we consider to be the most important changes and new developments:
Stefan Winkler, managing director of Winkler GmbH and an expert in the field of technical documentation, on the planned changes to the draft standard:
‘In its editorial recommendations, the standard EN ISO 20607 retains the familiar requirements for printed instructions and adopts the conditions for the provision of digital operating instructions from EU law.
The closer integration with the new EN ISO 12100 gives user information a higher priority for manufacturing companies through the (new) definition ‘risk reduction measure’ (prEN ISO 12100:2024, section 3.22).’
How is the interaction of EN ISO 20607 with the new EN ISO 12100 defined?
At the beginning of the year, a detailed link between the two standards was explained in the standard draft of the new EN ISO 12100. In prEN ISO 12100:2025, Section 6.4 (information for use) was supplemented to include the option of providing the documents in electronic form only.
In addition, this standard explicitly shows a link between the two standards, with the note that the accompanying documents (operating instructions) must in future fulfil the requirements of the EN ISO 20607 standard. This is consistent with the new publication of section 7.2 of the new EN ISO 20607 (requirements for fully digital operating instructions) – this content will thus become an elementary component of every machine with digital user information.
The revision of Annex A (Relationship between EN ISO 20607 and EN ISO 12100) remains to be seen. This correlation table is currently based only on the currently valid standard edition of EN ISO 12100:2010; under certain circumstances, a further comparison of the standard with EN ISO 12100:2025 will be added at a later date.
The draft of prEN ISO 20607 is essentially an editorial revision without any major surprises in terms of content. The main focus of the changes is on aspects of digital operating instructions, which have been gradually communicated since 2023 with the new Machinery Regulation (EU) 2023/1230 and the new version 2.3 of the Guide to Application of the Machinery Directive.
Although it is not undergoing a major revision, EN ISO 20607 is likely to be upgraded precisely because of these components – the even closer integration with the new EN ISO 12100 could make the standard the number one source for creating operating instructions (ahead of EN IEC/IEEE 82079-1).
Posted on: 2025-03-17
Daniel Zacek-Gebele, MSc Produktmanager bei IBF für Zusatzprodukte sowie Datenmanager für die Aktualisierung der Normendaten am Safexpert Live Server. Studium der Wirtschaftswissenschaften in Passau (BSc) und Stuttgart (MSc) im Schwerpunkt International Business and Economics.
E-Mail: daniel.zacek-gebele@ibf-solutions.com | www.ibf-solutions.com
Stefan Winkler
Managing Director of Winkler GmbH. Certified Product Compliance Officer ISO/IEC 17024; many years of experience in development/design, technical writing, CE marking consulting and CE marking project management.
E-Mail: stefan.winkler@winklergmbh.de
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