I often hear discussions about NFPA 79 (Electrical Standard for Industrial Machinery) having more importance than the ANSI B11 series of machine tool standards. Conversely, there’s an equal if not larger camp of user’s that profess the ANSI B11 series as “the rule of the land” inferring that NFPA 79 takes a back seat to ANSI.

In practice, we occasionally see customer specifications calling out requirements for these standards as well as some municipalities that have declared these standards as normative requirements. OSHA’s web site has a direct reference to the ANSI B11 series but only an indirect reference to NFPA 79.

Can anyone provide information clarifying this question?