Every company needs an appropriate method of dealing with hazardous machinery so as to prevent accidents and protect their workforce. This is why the establishment of a Lockout/Tagout (LOTO) program is of paramount importance to your organisation. Guidelines by the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety gives us details of what lockout/tagout programs are and looks at the necessary steps you need to take to properly ultilize a LOTO system in your company. Let’s take a look.
What is Lockout/ Tagout?
According to the guidelines, A LOTO program is primarily used for the “control of hazardous energy.” As the guidelines states, the process is just one way to control hazards which, in practice, is the “isolation of energy from the system” meaning a machine, equipment or process that “physically locks the system in a safe mode.” The device could be “a manually operated switch, a circuit breaker, a line valve, or a block.” A tagout is simply a “labelling process” that is used “when a lockout is required.”.
According to the guide, a LOTO program will help prevent the following:
- Any contact with a hazard while “performing tasks that require removal, by-passing, or deactivation of any safety devices
- The “unintended release of hazardous energy (stored energy)”
- The start-up of a machine or equipment
Why is it so important?
Safety devices that are present on a machine may be removed during maintenance or repair which will increase the risk of harm to your employees. By utilising a LOTO Program, you are reducing this risk to workers and ensuring all machinery is safe to work on.
Steps for Locking and Tagging Out a System
1) Prepare the shutdown
As the guide states, an “authorized person” or a manager appointed to the task, will identify what kinds of energy sources are present and if they must be controlled. This task requires completing a number of “specific work instructions” which detail what controls and practices are needed to properly lock and tag your system.
2) Notify all affected employees
According to the guide, the following should be communicated to your staff:
- What is going to be locked and tagged out
- Why is it happening
- How long will it take
- Who is the responsible officer
- Who is the key contact for additional information
3) Equipment shutdown
According to the guide, you should ensure that all of your machinery is shut down in its “normal manner”. Where possible, use the “manufacturer’s instructions or in-house work instructions.” Ensure that all of the controls are in the “off position” and ensure that all moving parts such as flywheels, gears, and spindles have come to a complete stop.”
4) Isolation of system from hazardous energy
According to the guide, each machine will have its own specific “written instructions” to that workplace with the following tips being used:
- Electrical Energy- turn switches to the off position and visually, “verify that the breaker. connections are in the off position.”
- Hydraulic and Pneumatic Potential Energy- Set valves in closed position and lock them. Then, bleed “off the energy by opening the pressure relief valves and then closing the airlines”.
- Mechanical Energy- Release energy, if not “block parts that may move.”
- Gravitational Potential Energy – Use a “safety block pin to prevent the part of the system that may fall or move”.
- Chemical Energy- Close and lockout valves. Bleed lines or “cap ends to remove chemicals from the system”.
5) Dissipation of residual or stored energy
According to the guide, examples include:
- Electrical Energy- Find a “specific method to discharge a capacitor”. Capacitors should be discharged in the lockout process.
- Hydraulic and Pneumatic set the valves in a “closed position”. “Contact the manufacturer for more specific details, or if no pressure relief valves are available, what other methods are available.”
- Mechanical Potential Energy
- Gravitational- lower “the part to a height where falling is impossible”.
- Chemical Energy “bleed lines, cap ends, remove chemicals.”
6) Lockout and Tagout
According to the guide, this is the point where there should be as “many locks on the system as people working on it”. Each employee should place their “own lock on the system.” Each lock “should only have one key”.
If you would like to learn more about implement safety training systems that encompass LOTO then take a look at our 60 seconds Video or Try a Free Demo Today.
Images Attribution: Wtshymanski (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
NAV/FAC Utilities Energy Manager Sang Hon Cho and Electrician Ho Chan Pang review lockout / tagout procedures during a Public Works Department Chinhae, Korea safety stand-down July 25.
