OSHA answers more LOTO questions
Background: A company has three (3) different types of locks that you define as follows:
Tissue manufacturer fined after worker injured hand unblocking machine
NOTE: OSHA would allow the “minor servicing exception” in this scenario, although the UK HSE does not. A tissue manufacturing company has been fined after an employee, 24, was seriously injured while clearing a machine blockage at its factory. During the manufacturing process, a tissue blockage occurred in the rollers of the machine, and the
Words matter in process safety… vent vs drain
I was recently involved with an organization that had an issue with overpressuring a 330-gallon plastic tote during their evacuation of their HHC/EHS for process work. So we had a nice discussion about the DIFFERENCE between “draining” and “venting”. The chemical in question is normally a “gas” but is stored as a liquid under pressure.
Safe Work Permitting Best Practice
These sleeves/pouches are a really handy tool for managing work permits. SDSs, etc., while making them highly visible. In my facilities, we used contractor work permits to control entry, scope of work, and exit for our covered processes. But most contractors had to obtain additional safe work permits for their specific work. And most of
So I asked AI… Can an “affected worker” who is not involved in the Lockout of a hazardous energy source be the one who verifies that the Lockout took the hazardous energy to a zero energy state per OSHA’s 1910.147?
Another crazy question that I was asked a few weeks back by a friend and up-and-coming safety pro. Again, the side bar group discussions ALL said NO, the authorized employee doing the LOTO must be the one to verify ZES of the LOTO, not the “affected employee” who has nothing to do with the LO
What should our performance expectations be in 2026 for our fundamentals, such as LOTO?
I wrote about “focusing on our fundamentals” this week, which generated a lot of discussions offline amongst my friends and clients. The number 1 question asked was “What should we score in 2026?” My response was “at least 95%”. That means that in 100 LO inspections, we should have a failure rate across ALL items
OSHA Compliance Report: Chemical Manufacturing (2025)
Reporting Period: October 2024 – September 2025 This report summarizes the enforcement activity for the chemical manufacturing sector over the past fiscal year. With 883 total citations across 264 inspections, the industry faced over $3.78 million in penalties. Executive Summary: The “Top 5” Risk Areas The majority of financial and safety risks is concentrated in
OSHA Standard Citation Report: Control of Hazardous Energy (2025)
Period: October 2024 – September 2025 Executive Summary Between October 2024 and September 2025, OSHA issued 2,550 citations for Lockout/Tagout (LOTO) violations across all industries. These citations resulted from 1,427 inspections and carried a total penalty weight of $16,446,984. The data indicates that the manufacturing sector remains the primary focus of LOTO enforcement, accounting for
So I asked Google Gemini… Can a human hold up a wall that is 20′ long and 8′ tall when 1.0 PSIG is applied to it?
When I explain this to a group, I always get a challenge from some engineer that what I am saying is not accurate. And after all, they are the “engineers.” So today I asked Google Gemini to explain it to me… Q: Can a human hold up a wall that is 20′ long and 8′
Vacuum is an ENERGY SOURCE (video)
I share this, as many may not recognize the power of a vacuum as a form of hazardous energy. ZERO = 0 and a vacuum is NOT zero, its actually LESS THAN ZERO! I added this video to the library this weekend. It demonstrates the power of a vacuum and why ALL energy sources MUST
Line Break gone bad (Hot Oil)
A refinery has been fined more than $182,000 by WorkSafeBC after an incident that saw an employee’s clothing sprayed with hot oil. On Wednesday, April 8, WorkSafeBC put out a media release regarding the incident and a corresponding penalty of $182,282.38 levied against the refinery on Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. A summary posted on the agency’s
Why ZES matters
For those who need an image of why 1 psig can be a lethal hazardous energy source! It’s why we say ZERO ENERGY STATE (ZES) in our control of hazardous energy programs. ONLY ZERO = ZERO! SAFTENG members can download the image without a watermark at SAFTENG