Lockout Tagout Mistakes That Can Lead To Injury or Death

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations and standards regarding lockout/tagout are aimed at protecting the workplace, staff and machinery from accidents that may occur during maintenance or repairs. Despite elaborate recommendations and audits, fatalities still continue and their severities range from mild shocks and missing fingers to lost lives.

While using suitable lockout/tagout devices from specialist dealers , it is equally important for the staff and technicians to strictly follow charted lockout processes to prevent any accidental damages.

Preventing accidents at the workplace is a joint responsibility of the employer and employees.

Getting a lockout/tagout program tailor-made for a specific work facility that has help specialists in the domain often proves helpful to address the complexities effectively.

While strict procedures are mandatory to ensure the lockouts go as planned, training staff and instilling a sense of responsibility is a must to avoid accidents.

Training should be imparted to not only personnel who actually man and maintain the equipment, but to all employees who have access to the workplace. They must be made aware of the lockout/tag out process, the relevance of tags and devices, and more importantly enlightened on why not to tamper with these tags or devices.

Periodical audits of the process are a must to verify if employees scale up to real-time challenges, identify shortfalls or areas of concern, and make appropriate changes to lockout procedures.

Laying out a clear set of policies for third-party service providers is a must to prevent accidents. The hired maintenance or repair firms must conform to visual indications and tags to ensure employees at the maintained facility recognize these warnings and avoid using equipment or areas that have been locked out.

Use of appropriate lockout devices and tags is necessary to get the right message across and get it noticed as well. A wide collection of lockout devices at www.lockoutsafety.com cater to diverse industrial requirements, and can be further accessorized or customized to match the needs.

Opting for the right form of tags also makes a difference. Simple messages, engravings, bold colours or even photo ID tags can make the devices easily noticeable.

Visual indicators, posters or line diagrams right next to a specific system or machine can help people easily recognize power sources and movable parts, use the information either to lockout the equipment, or simply avoid accidentally starting up the system.

Limiting the use of master keys to unlock equipment can prevent untimely access to machines and equipment still being serviced, or areas that haven’t been cleared for use. The technician on the job is the best person to clear the area and machinery for use. During emergencies though, shackles can be broken to operate the equipment, but only after verifying the status of the task with the concerned employee.