An LO/TO standard covers the servicing and maintenance of equipment where an unexpected energization or start up, or a release of stored energy could cause injury. Writing an LO/TO standard starts with tracing back and labeling all inputs and crafting an equipment-specific procedure.
Implementing the safety program begins with thinking carefully about the role of employees in three job classifications:
>Authorized—an employee who locks or tags out machines or equipment in order to perform servicing or maintenance or equipment.
>Affected—an employee whose job requires him/her to operate equipment or services on which servicing or maintenance is being performed under lockout or tagout, or places him/her in an area in which servicing or maintenance is being performed.
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>All others—Employees not directly involved in authorizing or operating specific equipment must be trained to recognize LO/TO devices and tags and to not attempt to start a machine under LO/TO.
Training
Employee training is very important for a fully functional lockout/tagout program. All personnel should understand the duties of authorized, affected and other employees. It should be stressed that those not designated as authorized should not work on the equipment. Many employees have been injured because they watched the machine being serviced, decided they could do it themselves and inadvertently skipped a step or did not lockout/tagout the equipment at all.
Equipment is to be locked out and tagged whenever a safety guard is removed or bypassed. LO/TO should be implemented whenever an employee is expected to place any part of their body into a danger zone during a machine operating cycle. This applies to hazardous moving parts and hazardous energy sources.
Exempted Situations
Some pieces of equipment will not need an equipment-specific lockout/tagout procedure. Examples include hazardous energy that has a single energy source which can be easily identified and isolated, and machinery that is plugged into a socket where the technician has control of the plug, there is no potential or stored energy, and re-accumulation of hazardous energy cannot happen whether it be it electrical, hydraulic, pneumatic, steam or other.
There is also an exemption from creating equipment-specific lockout/tagout procedures if the facility has had no accidents involving the unexpected activation or re-energization of the equipment during servicing. Don’t wait for an accident involving hazardous energy to occur, however. Be proactive and create equipment-specific lockout/tagout procedures for potential hazards.
For those new to the field of facility management or just starting to address equipment-specific lockout/tagout procedures, the project can seem like Mission Impossible.
There may be pushback from supervisors and managers who want to address the problem as the equipment or machinery breaks. While this is a tempting argument, when equipment or machinery break, the emphasis is to “hurry up and get it back on-line,” not to step back and write a safety procedure.
A step-by-step approach will help in assessing the current situation and addressing gaps in procedures. A best management practice is to form a team since this task is too large for one person. Garner support from those technicians involved on a daily basis—there will likely be site knowledge that has not been documented. A team also helps to build a sense of ownership instead of the attitude “it’s the facility manager’s job, let him do it.” The following five-step approach works well:
1. Ensure all valves, breakers, steam lines, chemical distribution lines, gas lines, etc. are properly labeled and tagged. Add directional arrows to lines containing steam, liquids (water or chemicals) and gases. A best management practice is to have labels every 10 feet from point of service to the equipment. Also place the labels on both sides where the services cross through a wall, floor or ceiling. Have the equipment technicians who service the equipment assist you. Brass tags work great for outside areas.
2. Ensure that all valves, breakers, etc. have the ability to be locked out/tagged out. If you have an older facility, you may have equipment or machinery that was designed and manufactured prior to the lockout/tagout standard. You will have to use tagout in this case and ensure it provides the same level of protection as if it were locked out. Survey the equipment to determine the type of lockout device along with the size. Butterfly valves come in many sizes and the lockout devices must be sized properly to lockout the valve. Also determine the number of locks that will be needed and be prepared for a worst-case scenario where multiple lockout operations occur simultaneously.
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