A Lockout/Tagout Tools Tutorial

A careful and organized approach to lockout/tagout is critically important. Lockout/tagout procedures protect the lives and well-being of workers; failure to build an effective lockout/tagout program can result in serious injury or death.

And yet, despite the critical nature of lockout/tagout and the staggering human cost of making lockout/tagout mistakes (as well as monetary costs by way of punitive fines), it continues to be found in OSHA’s top 10 most-cited violations list every year. Given this information, we can conclude that lockout/tagout non-compliance is a serious, widespread, current, and relevant problem. As such, the problem and potential solutions to the problem warrant a very close look. This article aims to discuss ways for companies to comply with lockout/tagout regulations in the safest, easiest, and most efficient manner possible. We will discuss a number of products that will help businesses create an organized and streamlined lockout/tagout program, including lockout stations, tag centers, group lockout boxes, and lockout information cabinets.

Lockout/Tagout Stations

Lockout/tagout stations can help one organize one's lockout program. A lockout station stores and organizes padlocks, hasps, tags, and cable ties. Stations provide an organized, standardized arrangement of locks and easy access to those locks.

This has several benefits:

1. Lockout stations foster a habitual, methodical, and organized approach to LOTO safety. By going to the same place to retrieve critical lockout devices, workers develop and maintain safe habits.

2. Lockout stations promote efficient operations. If workers know precisely where all required lockout devices are, this saves valuable time and thereby increases overall productivity.

3. Lockout stations also save space. A centralized location prevents confusion and clutter. Maximizing space, in addition to streamlining operations, also helps to make a facility safer.

Safety tag centers perform a similar function to lockout/tagout stations and will be especially valuable to businesses that require a number of different tags. Tag centers can store a business’s most commonly used tags in a convenient and easy-to-find location.

Group Lockout

Unlike lockout stations, kits, tag centers, and information cabinets—which, while highly recommended by this writer, are not explicitly required by OSHA—some type of group lockout device is required in group lockout maintenance or repair operations. OSHA standard 1910.147(f)(3)(ii)(D) states: "Each authorized employee shall affix a personal lockout or tagout device to the group lockout device, group lockbox, or comparable mechanism when he or she begins work, and shall remove those devices when he or she stops working on the machine or equipment being serviced or maintained."

When selecting the devices one will use on group lockout repair or maintenance operations, one should consider the same qualities we enumerated previously: organization and efficiency. A group lockout box is a commonly used option, and for good reason. A group lockout box is an effective and easily portable way to organize lockout devices and protect workers. Group lockout boxes hold one lockout padlock on the front latch, usually for use by a supervisor, and feature holes for several other locks on the sides of the box, where maintenance and repair workers can place their locks. Each lock prevents the box from opening.

It works in the following manner: An authorized supervisor locks out the relevant machine at each energy isolation point with a lockout device. The operating key or keys to the lockout device are then placed in the lockout box, and the supervisor places his or her lock on the front latch of the lockout box. Each worker then locks his or her individual locks to the lockout box. The box is then impossible to open until each worker has removed his or her lock. The keys to the lockout devices can then be retrieved by the supervisor so that activation of the equipment can be completed in an orderly and safe manner.

Group lockout boxes are available in a number of different sizes and configurations. Finding a lockout box that holds the appropriate number of locks should not be especially difficult.

Previously featured on OH&S's website.

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