Recently we witnessed an electrical work perform a lockout on a piece of equipment that was not starting during the start-up phase of the process. This piece of equipment was absolutely critical for the process to run safely so this worker and the facility personnel witnessing this as well failed to recognize a CRITICAL mistake he made in his “means to verify a zero energy state”. When I questioned his actions I was met with a lot of pushback, such as “OSHA does not require it” or my favorite… “I’ve been doing this job long before you graduated with your fancy college degree”. What did I witness?
This electrical worker failed to test his voltmeter on a known source, then test the isolated circuit, and then retest his meter on the known source again. Where did I get such a crazy notion that this is part of electrical safety-related work practices?