jovo14, We have a lot of equipment in the plant that has just these icons you describe. There appears to be no rhyme, reason, logic or standard in their development and use even within a nation or even companies. It seems that some design group has hired some graphics designer off the street and then given them a free hand. It's so bad that we have had to go out, relabel each and every control element all over again, not too mention having to hang a "Rosetta Stone" on all the equipment to be able to get the operators to interpret the Hieroglyphics and push the buttons in the proper sequences.

Standards? Don't make me laugh! ;)

saxon

Depending on what type of machine you have developed, the following may help:
SAE J1362 Graphical Symbols for Operator Controls and Displays on Off-Road Self-propelled Work Machines
ISO 7000 Graphical Symbols for use on Equipment

Hi Jovo14!  I have a document from Festo. In that document they use some symbols to represent functions like handling, clamping, holding, and so.
  
If you think that document can help you, I cand send you an
e-mail.  

Jovo, there is a right way to use Symbologies and pictograms. IEC 417 and ISO 7000 are a good start but sometimes a manufacture is forced to use some of their own symbols to identify a special process. The key is the translation of the symbols and pictograms in the manual. Each symbol and pict. should be defined at the beginning of a manual and then next to the hazard or item in the manual as it is explained (pictures in the manual are very helpful). This allows the operator to see the symbol next to the explanation and identify the actuator or hazard associated with symbol or pict. Most manufacture use the main 5 languages as a base for there manuals and sometimes that must be updated for countries like Russia, Japan and China where the the languages are very different.

There is a company called HCS that specializes in symbols, go to www.hazcomsys.com they have both US and European symbols. Keep in mind that the European symbols are based on ISO 3863 and North American symbols are based on ANSI Z535. I recommend you use European symbols so that you don't have to translate  the warnings associated with north american symbols.

Christopher Caserta
ccaserta@us.tuv.com
Ph:904-225-0360