Some companies develop an elaborate generic energy control procedure and supplement the generic procedure with checklists or appendices to address various distinct machinery and equipment in their facilities. This type of procedure and those described above may be considered a single energy control procedure (instead of multiple procedures) for inspection purposes if all of the criteria contained in this chapter on grouping the same or similar machines/equipment are met.
However, suppose checklists or appendices address machinery/equipment that does not use the same or similar control measures. In that case, the employer must divide machinery and equipment referenced in the checklists or appendices into groups, such that the machines/equipment in any group have the same or similar types of control measures.
Once this is accomplished, an employer may inspect and review the generic energy control procedure in conjunction with each distinct group of machines/equipment referenced in the relevant checklists or appendices.
A review of each employee’s responsibilities under the procedure, in accordance with 1910.147(c)(6)(i)(C) and (D), is the second periodic inspection component. When the lockout is used, the employer’s inspection must include a review of the responsibilities of each authorized employee implementing the procedure with that employee. When tagout is used, the employer must conduct this review with each affected AND authorized employee. However, to meet the review requirement, the inspector does not have to observe every authorized employee implementing the energy control procedure on the machine or equipment on which he is authorized to do servicing and/or maintenance. Rather, the inspector performing the inspection may observe and talk with a representative number of such employees implementing the procedure to obtain a reasonable reflection of the servicing or maintenance work practices being evaluated.
In addition, to supplement this representative inspection sampling approach, additional supplemental reviews, as discussed in this section, must still be performed with all of the authorized employees who are reasonably expected to implement the procedure during the year. Group meetings may be the most effective way to meet the review requirements and to reestablish employee procedure responsibilities and proficiency. Regarding the authorized employees (e.g., general plant maintenance personnel) who perform many servicing and/or maintenance tasks throughout an entire facility, it may not be practical for an employer to identify each of the procedures these employees will implement during the year. However, before performing servicing or maintenance on a machine or piece of equipment, each authorized employee must have reviewed the inspection results from that machine or piece of equipment (or similar machine/piece of equipment, if machines/pieces of equipment have been grouped for inspection purposes).