CAL-OSHA has published a very nice LOTO manual with many great tips for everyone, inside and outside of the state of CA! Failure to develop and follow lockout and blockout procedures before working on machinery is one of the major causes of serious injury and death in the USA. Workers can become electrocuted – or suffer permanent disfigurement – due to inadvertent activation of a machine while it is being maintained, repaired or adjusted. Many occupational injuries and deaths occur during the cleaning, adjusting, unjamming, and servicing of machinery. Here is a situation that could happen at your facility:
Your facility may have a machine that needs to be serviced. To the untrained worker, the machine is turned off from the power source and service work may begin. In the meantime, another employee arrives and reactivates the machine while unaware that the worker is still working inside the machine. The maintenance worker is then injured or killed by moving parts in the reactivated machine.
Failure to lockout, blockout and tagout machinery, as required by OSHA regulations, can cause devastating injuries and/or death to workers. These injuries can be prevented by having effective hazardous energy control procedures.
CLICK HERE to download the CAL-OSHA LOTO Manual.