A3's final mobile robot safety standard is written for the sites running the robots

A3 has completed its three-part R15.08 safety standard series for industrial mobile robots. The final piece is written for the people who run the robots every day.

ANSI/A3 R15.08-3-2026, formally titled Part 3: Use of IMR Applications, completes the three-part R15.08 series. A3 announced on September 29 that it was available, though the store listing gives a publication date of April 23, 2026. A3 says Part 3 deals specifically with the responsibilities of users operating mobile robot applications in the workplace.

It addresses risk assessment, the handling of change, training for employees, and inspections and reviews done at regular intervals. Its requirements and guidance aim to hold risk at an acceptable level in day-to-day operations and over the full lifecycle of the machinery.

The question for a site is what it owns once the integrator's commissioning work is finished.

A robot whose surroundings keep changing

ANSI's blog post on Part 1 opens with a busy distribution center, where people, forklifts, equipment and inventory are always on the move. An industrial mobile robot (IMR) adds one more moving element to that floor while it handles material, supports assembly, tows and lifts loads, runs quality checks or removes waste.

That is the difference from a traditional industrial robot, which ANSI says typically works within a defined, stationary workspace. An IMR moves through the facility and interacts with changing surroundings. So its risk picture can shift even when nobody touches the robot. That helps explain why the series needed a third document aimed at the people who control those surroundings day to day.

Builder, integrator, then the site

The vocabulary shifts as the series moves downstream, and that shift tells you where the work goes. Part 1 is built around the specified operating environment (SOE), which the ANSI post says the manufacturer documents. Part 1 describes the basic hazards of IMRs in an industrial environment in Clause 3.12 and sets requirements to eliminate those risks or reduce them enough.

Part 2 covers IMRs adapted for particular applications and deployed in a particular operating environment. It also covers groups of IMRs working as one system, which the standard calls an industrial mobile robot fleet (IMRF). ANSI describes Part 3 as setting out user responsibilities for safe operation in the specific operating environment, and A3's store listing says it emphasizes management of change of both the IMR application and the current operating environment (COE).

That suggests a mobile robot's safety case starts with what the builder wrote down, and that keeping it valid is a continuing job on the floor. Part 1 points the same way. It calls risk assessment an iterative process and requires key "information for use" to be passed to the system integrator and ultimately the end user. Part 3 is where that information arrives, and where the iterations become the site's job.

The manufacturer's side has stayed put. The ANSI post says the 2026 edition of Part 1 is a reaffirmation with no technical differences from the 2020 text. Its name changed from ANSI/RIA to ANSI/A3 only because the Robotic Industries Association is now called A3. With Part 1 unchanged and Part 3 aimed at users, the newest work in the series could fall mostly on the sites that run the robots.

ANSI says the three parts together set up a safety framework running from robot design through integration and operation. A3 also sells Parts 1, 2 and 3 as a bundle. For a site that only ever saw the integrator's paperwork, that bundle could be a practical way to read the manufacturer and integration documents its own obligations build on.

What the site's safety program has to hold

According to A3's store listing, Part 3 emphasizes safe use, treats risk assessment as central, and covers personnel safety over the full lifecycle of the machinery. Two of its topics stand out because a commissioning checklist can't finish them: management of change and periodic reviews and inspections. Each is something a site keeps doing, and doesn't simply sign off once.

A3's own outline of the series makes the same point in one word. Part 1 covers the robot, Part 2 covers systems and applications, and Part 3 covers the "continued use" of IMR applications in day-to-day operations. That word marks the point where safety stops being an event at deployment and becomes a running process.

Part 3 also has a twin. According to A3, it was written in tandem with the third part of the ANSI/A3 R15.06 standard for industrial robot safety, so users receive consistent direction on operating robot systems safely, fixed or mobile. Some facilities run caged or collaborative arms in cells and mobile robots in the aisles. For them, the paired documents suggest a single safety program could handle both, rather than two separate programs built on different logic.

Who the series is written for

The series defines "industrial" broadly. The ANSI post on Part 1 says the term covers the production of goods and related services. It lists manufacturing, laboratory, pharmaceutical, warehousing, distribution and logistics sites, plus other workplaces not usually thought of as strictly industrial.

That boundary could be the main limit on the reading above. ANSI says Part 1's guidance is aimed mainly at industrial environments that are structured or semi-structured, where the people who work with the robots have been trained. For a site where untrained people regularly share space with the fleet, Part 3 could be a starting point and not a full answer. The training requirement in Part 3 suggests the same thing from the other side: the user's obligations appear to assume trained people work around the robots.

The standards body's own membership spans that chain. A3 says its members represent more than 1,500 organizations, among them end users and system integrators, manufacturers and component suppliers, plus consulting firms, research groups and academic institutions. The organization that wrote Part 1 for builders also counts Part 3's audience among its members.

The user side is also growing. The ANSI post cites Packaging World figures: in 2025, mobile robots accounted for 32% of robotics revenue in the U.S. packaging and processing industry, and that share is projected to reach 45% by 2031. In that sector, more of the robot budget is going to machines that move through shared space. That is the kind of operation where changes to the surrounding environment, which Part 3 asks users to manage, are part of daily work.

Next dates on A3's calendar

A3's upcoming events include the International Robot Safety Conference in Detroit, November 3 to 5, 2026. The A3 Business Forum follows in Orlando on January 18 to 20, 2027, and the Automate show in Las Vegas on May 10 to 13, 2027.

For sites with mobile fleets already running, the practical step is to compare the current inspection and change-review routine against a 77-page document that now spells out what the user owns.