Lockout/Tagout (LOTO) procedures are crucial to workplace safety as they help protect your employees from the danger posed by energy when doing maintenance or servicing equipment.
However, simply having locks and tags is not enough. It’s a regulatory requirement to ensure that your LOTO procedures are effective, and you also don’t want to put your employees at risk of injuries or fatality.
In this guide, we’ll look at the various elements you need to focus on to ensure that your LOTO procedures are effective.
Proper lockout devices
There are different types of lockouts and tags you can use, but you need to ensure that you get the right ones for your facility. To do this, you will first need to carry out a comprehensive overview of your equipment.
Understand the various pieces of equipment and then purchase lockouts that are suitable to them. You will need a variety of locks beyond circuit breaker lockouts. These include cable lockouts, ball valve lockouts, gate valve lockouts, lockout hasps, and safety padlocks.
When selecting them, ensure that you consider the type of power and the size of the equipment. This is important as you don’t want to have lockouts that are not effective and can expose your employees to danger.
Written LOTO policy & procedures
For your locks and tags to be used effectively, you will need a policy and the procedures that should be followed during lockouts. The policy document is the starting point, and it should outline things such as the different types of hazardous energy that may be present in your machinery, the people responsible for maintenance, and how different aspects of the lock-out procedures will be handled.
Just by looking at the policy, you should be able to know the people responsible for writing the procedures, training employees, maintaining equipment, and auditing the procedures.
The procedure document, on the other hand, should focus on every detail of the LOTO process. It should capture all the steps that the maintenance crew should follow. This starts with isolating energy, locking out and placing tags, de-energising equipment, verifying the isolation and de-energising, and removing the lockouts. When everything is clearly written, it will be easier for all employees to follow the procedures.
Comprehensive training for all employees
All employees in your organisation are part of the LOTO process, so they need to understand their roles and responsibilities. Of course, the bulk of it lies with the people responsible for the lockouts, which is the maintenance or servicing crew.
These people should be properly trained on the lockout procedures they need to follow to ensure their own safety. Some of these may be standard for all organisations, but others are specific. For example, depending on the tags you are using, you may need a person who uses a lockout to write their name on the tag.
Besides the authorised to initiate lockouts, there are also two other types of employees. The first are the people who are affected by lockouts. These are employees using the equipment that has been shut down, and they should understand the procedures and their importance. There’s then the people who are not affected, such as the janitors. Ensure that they also know the various LOTO procedures and what is expected of them in such situations.
Regular audits and inspections
While you may your train your employees every now and then, you also need to be sure that they are following all procedures. After all, any liabilities will come back to you. To prevent laxity, have a schedule for reviewing and inspecting your lockout procedures. In the review, look at whether you have changed your equipment and need to update your procedures.
In the inspection, look at how the employees are carrying out their responsibilities during lockouts. Are there service staff who don’t use locks when they are only doing a short maintenance task? Are there any unauthorised individuals who enter LOTO areas during lockouts? Collect this data and use it to improve your lockout procedures and training.
