The ANSI B11 series of American National Standards and Technical Reports consists of nearly three dozen different documents that deal with machine / machinery / machine tool safety, and they specify requirements for both the manufacturers (suppliers) and users of the machines.
The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) accredits Standards Developing Organizations to develop voluntary consensus standards according to rigorous procedures and approves those resultant American National Standards.
These documents are used frequently both by federal OSHA and its state counterparts or related agencies with regard to employers and their responsibility to provide a safe and healthful workplace, and in interpreting the existing workplace safety and health requirements enforced by the agencies (such as OSHA's Lockout/Tagout and Machine Guarding Standards) and in initiating rulemakings to amend existing rules or adopt new rules governing the control of workplace hazards.
They are also frequently used by the legal community (both plaintiff and defense) in product liability cases regarding the machinery or equipment supplier. Having a standard against which can be measured the relative risk of designs offers an objective method of review.