Page 38 - Occupational Health & Safety, December 2018

LOCKOUT/TAGOUT
Staying Safe During Equipment Maintenance
Lockout/tagout ranked fifth on OSHA’s list of the Top Ten most-violated standards during fiscal years 2017 and 2018. There were 2,877 violations of 1910.147 during FY2017 and 2,944 during FY2018.
BY JERRY LAWS
Lockout/tagout, known as LOTO, is the concept of controlling hazardous energy, usually in order to service or perform maintenance on machin- ery. Planning the work, identifying all energy
sources to be controlled and the means for verifying disconnection, training employees and supervisors on the procedures to follow to ensure they work safely, and providing the necessary devices and equipment—locks, tags, etc.—should be addressed in the employer’s writ- ten LOTO plan for carrying out the work.
Appendix A of OSHA’s 1910.147 lockout standard offers a simple lockout procedure that the agency says could benefit employers as they develop their pro- cedures, so that they’ll meet the standard’s require- ments. The appendix explains when tagout may be used—only when the energy-isolating devices are not lockable and the employer complies with the stan- dard’s provisions requiring additional training and more rigorous, periodic inspections.
The procedure establishes the minimum require- ments for lockout of energy-isolating devices. It lists a sequence of steps to follow, beginning with notifying all affected employees that servicing or maintenance is required on a machine or on equipment that must be shut down and locked out. The procedure says, “All employees are required to comply with the restric- tions and limitations imposed upon them during the use of lockout. The authorized employees are required to perform the lockout in accordance with this pro- cedure. All employees, upon observing a machine or piece of equipment which is locked out to perform servicing or maintenance shall not attempt to start, energize, or use that machine or equipment.”
Other steps in the sequence include having the au- thorized employee:
■ refer to the company’s procedure to identify the type(s) and magnitude of energy the equipment utilizes,
■ understand the hazards of the energy, and
■ know the methods to control the energy.
Next, if the machine or equipment is operating,
it should be shut down by the normal stopping pro- cedure, then the energy-isolating device(s) should be locked out with assigned, individual locks, and stored or residual energy must be dissipated or restrained by methods such as grounding, repositioning, blocking, bleeding down, etc., it states.
The authorized employee is then to ensure the machine is disconnected from the energy source(s) by first checking that no personnel are exposed, then
verifying the isolation of the equipment by operating the push button or other normal operating control(s) or by testing to make certain the equipment will not operate. (“Caution: Return operating control(s) to neutral or ‘off ’ position after verifying the isolation of the equipment,” it warns.)
When all of this is done, the machine is locked out.
Restoring Machinery to Service
Restoring the machine or equipment to service fol- lowing servicing or maintenance takes fewer steps:
■ Check the machine/equipment and the immedi- ate area around it to make sure non-essential items have been removed and components are operationally intact.
■ Check the work area—have all employees been safely positioned or removed from the area?
■ Verify the controls are in neutral.
■ Remove the lockout devices and re-energize the machinery.
■ Notify affected employees that the servicing or maintenance work is completed and that the machine or equipment is ready for use.
An OSHA online tutorial1 about lockout/tagout stresses an important point about the step where lockout devices are removed after servicing or main- tenance work is finished: Each lock or tag must be re- moved from the energy-isolating device by the worker who applied it [29 CFR 1910.147(e)(3)].
The tutorial explains the circumstance that allows an employee other than the one who applied a LOTO device to remove it: “When the authorized employee who applied the lockout or tagout device is not avail- able to remove it, that device may be removed under the direction of the employer, provided that specific procedures and training for such removal have been developed, documented, and incorporated into the employer’s energy control program.”
The employer must take these steps if an employee other than the one who applied the device removes it: ■ The employer must verify that the authorized
employee who applied the device isn’t at the facility.
■ The employer must make all reasonable efforts to contact the authorized employee to inform that
person that the device has been removed.
■ The employer must ensure that the authorized employee knows the lockout device has been removed
before he or she resumes work at the facility.
29 CFR 1910.147(f )(4) directs employers to ensure “the continuity of employee protection” amid shift or
34 Occupational Health & Safety | DECEMBER 2018
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