Most facilities will have a few pieces of equipment that require using a dozen or more energy isolation devices to achieve a full LO’ed situation. Most businesses, at least early on in their implementation of LOTO for these pieces of equipment, will state ALL energy isolation devices will be utilized regardless of the scope of work being performed. This may seem like the “safest” approach, but what we typically find is that it leads to shortcuts that place authorized employees in serious harm.
For example:
The machine has 14 energy isolation points; however, the work I will be performing on the machine necessitates that I only need three (3) of them to FULLY PROTECT me based on my scope of work. Taking the simple approach and locking out all 14 energy isolation points will take 25 minutes; locking out the three (3) that I actually need will take 5 minutes.
Although the policy states to lock all 14 out, we can envision the policy being broken! Hence the title of this article… In a mature LOTO program, “SCOPE of WORK” matters.
How do we manage this aspect of LOTO?