Scenario:
A contractor is hired to make repairs to a piece of equipment. This work will require the machine’s energy sources to be isolated per 1910.147. The facility has a machine-specific procedure for said equipment. The contractor follows the machine-specific procedure and uses their company’s LOTO locks per their written LOTO program/practices to lockout this piece of equipment. Right next to this piece of equipment that has been isolated using the contractor’s LOTO locks is another contractor installing a new and identical piece of equipment. The contractors that performed the lockout used a very popular brand of silver locks – some with blue bands and some with yellow bands. The host employer’s LOTO program uses “color” to identify their LOTO locks, and they use a solid red lock for their energy isolations. The site has a contractor safety orientation program for all contractors, and during said orientation, they train all the contractors that site LOTO locks are red in color.
Does this sound familiar to anyone? Maybe your facility has a contractor safety orientation where LOTO locks are identified by color, shape, or size for all the contractors so that they can identify LOTO locks. Maybe your facility allows contractors to isolate machinery/equipment using their own LOTO locks. If any of this sounds familiar, this article may be of interest.
We have found many facilities struggle with managing contractors within their LOTO program and practices and have seen many different approaches. Sure, 1910.147(f)(2) Outside personnel (contractors, etc.) is intended to cover contractors, but it is supposed to cover ALL contractors, including those contractors that are “other” workers; and maybe even “affected” workers if contractors/temp labor is used at the facility to operate machinery/equipment. Contractors and LOTO can be managed in a very simplistic manner, and it actually eases the burdens on all parties involved; as we have seen, contractors and LOTO can be very complex, which opens the doors to “confusion and risks” – something not wanted in LOTO practices.
The two big gaps we see most often are illustrated in the scenario above. When a facility allows a contractor to place their contractor LOTO locks (or tags) on energy isolation devices and those locks are a DIFFERENT color, shape, or size from those the facility uses, we will most likely have “affected” and “other” employees NOT adequately trained so that they can identify the contractor’s LOTO locks. Most facilities do annual LOTO training, although not actually required, on their own LOTO program/practices. In this training for “affected” and “other” employees, the color of the LOTO locks is explained so that these employees will not attempt to defeat these safety-critical locks. However, in this annual training, these “affected” and “other” employees are trained that LOTO locks are RED in color, so when they come across the contractor’s LOTO locks that are silver – some with blue bands and some with yellow bands these “affected” and “other” employees will NOT recognize these locks as LOTO locks as they have NOT been trained to recognize these color of locks as lockout locks. This could lead to some serious confusion and compliance issues, and I am not done yet.
In the scenario, I mentioned the other contractor who was working next to this piece of machinery that had been locked out using the contractor’s silver locks – some with blue bands and some with yellow bands. Do we not think that this “other contractor” should be able to identify these contractor locks as Lockout locks? How/When did we train them on using silver locks – some with blue bands and some with yellow bands? When they went through the site safety orientation, they were also trained that lockout locks are RED in color and not silver locks – some with blue bands and some with yellow bands.
There are very few absolutes in OSHA standards, but one of these absolutes can be found in 1910.147 regarding the identification of Lockout locks:
1910.147(c)(5)(ii) Lockout devices and tagout devices shall be SINGULARLY IDENTIFIED; shall be the ONLY devices(s) used for controlling energy; shall NOT be used for OTHER PURPOSES; and shall meet the following requirements: …
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1910.147(c)(5)(ii)(B) Standardized. Lockout and tagout devices shall be standardized within the facility in at least one of the following criteria: Color; shape; or size;
So it is very clear that we MUST identify our lockout locks by AT LEAST ONE of the following criteria: COLOR, SHAPE, or SIZE. And once we have identified our lockout locks (in our program/procedures) in one of these criteria, we MUST ONLY use these locks for lockout, and we can NOT use these locks for any other purpose. OSHA wants total clarity on the identification of Lockout locks, such that this is what they said in the LOTO preamble:
The proposed standard specified that lockout or tagout devices be singularly identified, shall be the only devices used for controlling hazardous energy, shall not be used for other purposes, and shall be durable, standardized, substantial, and identifiable. This requirement remains substantially unchanged in the Final Rule. Three commenters (Ex. 2-53, 2-64 and 2-70) objected to not allowing energy control devices to be used for other purposes. This restriction was proposed, and is being adopted to ensure that the sight of a distinctive lock or tag will provide a constant message of the use that the device is being put to and the restrictions which this device is intended to convey. If lockout or tagout devices are used for other purposes, they can lose their significance in the workplace. For the energy control procedure to be effective, these devices must have a single meaning to employees: “Do not energize or attempt to start or operate a machine or equipment when such a device is affixed to an energy isolating device which controls the energy to that machine or equipment.
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OSHA requires that lockout or tagout devices be standardized in one of the following criteria: color, shape, size, print or format, in order that they be readily identifiable and distinguished from other similar devices found in the workplace. In addition, the final rule adds a requirement for the use of a standardized print and format for tagout devices. This is done to ensure that the tagout devices, which rely exclusively on employee recognition for their effectiveness, will be so unique as to minimize the chances of their being misidentified or their message misinterpreted.
So the idea is that once we have our lockout locks identified in our written program and training program by color, shape, or size, we then proceed to ensure that everyone (including contractors) who can come across a lockout lock is TRAINED to identify them. This means that we train ALL three (3) groups identified in the LOTO standard: 1) Authorized, 2) Affected, and 3) Others so that they can CLEARLY identify lockout locks and understand their roles and responsibilities within the facility’s energy control program as it applies to these lockout locks.
When we allow contractors to introduce lockout locks that are of a different “color, shape, or size” than those identified in the facility’s written program and training program (including the training provided in the contractor safety orientation(s)) into the workplace, we have just introduced “lockout locks” that are NOT “standardized within the facility in at least one of the following criteria: Color; shape; or size.”
We can make life much easier for everyone if we just REQUIRED the contractors to conform to our LOTO program rather than allowing them to introduce new lockout locks to the facility. This leads me to the next serious gap that involves contractors locking out “facility equipment.” Don’t we think that if a contractor is going to lock out our equipment using our machine-specific procedure, he/she should have some level of training on said procedure??? Are we doing this training? If so, are we documenting the training, and are we including these contractor employees in our periodic inspection program so that we can validate their compliance with our LOTO program/procedures/practices? It should be coming into focus that when we permit contractors to perform lockout on company-owned and operated equipment, they should be NO DIFFERENT than our own “authorized employees,” and in many companies, that is being a tab bit “too cozy” with contractors and opens the doors to litigation should an accident occur.
In all of my facilities during my career as a safety professional in petro-chem, we had a standing policy that contractors NEVER turn a valve or switch – PERIOD! An operator, or the owner of the equipment, would perform the isolation AND verification of the zero energy state for each isolated energy source; they would then place the keys to those lockout locks into a lockbox, and then the contractors who would be assigned to work on that equipment would FIRST “check-in” with the operator and WALK-DOWN the isolation BEFORE they placed their personal lockout lock on the lockbox and their key into their pocket. This was done dozens, if not hundreds of times daily, with little confusion. In fact, it improved maintenance efficiency as the equipment would be shut down, cleaned, and isolated BEFORE the maintenance or contractors arrived – saving a lot of time and money!
We did have a couple of exceptions to our rule. For example, our admin buildings had HVAC units for heating and cooling the building on their roofs. These HVAC units had their local disconnects right at the unit. These roofs were “controlled access” zones due to fall hazards and other hazards like high voltage electrical, and this allowed us to permit the HVAC contractor to use his/her own personal LOTO lock on the local disconnect. You see, we ONLY issued a single work permit while they were up there doing work on the units. This prevented anyone else from coming into contact with their lockout lock(s) used on the local disconnect. We had many additional requests for exemptions, but we did NOT grant the exception if the area was not a controlled access area with ALL of the isolation devices within this controlled area.
Bottom line… anyone who can come across a lockout lock in their work duties MUST be able to clearly identify it as a lockout lock, as well as who put the lock there. This goes for ANYONE and EVERYONE, excluding escorted visitors, of course. Contractors, temporary workers from staffing agencies, “equipment experts” from foreign lands, etc. You MUST be able to recognize LOTO locks. And when we permit contractors to introduce lockout locks that are of a different color, shape, or size than what workers on site have been trained to recognize, we can create serious problems in a very CRITICAL safety practice.
Now some will claim that OSHA permits contractors to use their own locks on the host employers’ equipment. And I would agree, as 1910.147(f)(2) Outside personnel (contractors, etc.) is intended to be a baseline in how we manage contractors working at our facility. However, when we apply these requirements, we can see how convoluted this baseline method can be. The standard requires:
1910.147(f)(2)(i) Whenever outside servicing personnel are to be engaged in activities covered by the scope and application of this standard, the on-site employer and the outside employer shall inform each other of their respective lockout or tagout procedures.
1910.147(f)(2)(ii) The on-site employer shall ensure that his/her employees understand and comply with the restrictions and prohibitions of the outside employer’s energy control program.
When we break these two requirements down, we see that:
- the on-site and outside employers shall inform each other of their respective lockout or tagout procedures. This means the host employer must inform the contractor of their respective LOTO procedures. EACH CONTRACTOR COMPANY participating in LOTO at the facility will inform the on-site employer of their practices. This can lead to CRAZY times for host site workers and other contractors! Imagine a site that has 15 contractor companies who participate in LOTO at the facility, and the facility personnel had to be trained in the 15 DIFFERENT contractors’ LOTO programs (i.e., all the different assortments of colors used for lockout locks). Also, don’t forget that EACH of the other contractors on site would need to be trained in the other 14 contractors’ LOTO programs as well. That is a lot of LOTO training and a lot of colors to keep straight!
- on-site employer shall ensure that his/her employees understand and comply with the restrictions and prohibitions of the outside employer’s energy control program. This means that the host site must train ALL of their employees as “affected employees” or “other employees” under each contractor’s LOTO program. This means that all site employees MUST be able to identify contractor lockout locks by color, shape, or size. And as I said above, if we have just 15 contractors on site who are permitted to use their own lockout locks, we would have to conduct a lot of training for the site employees and other contractors. In essence, doing LOTO in this manner means that we would have 16 different LOTO programs with potentially dozens of lock colors that EVERYONE working on site would be REQUIRED to be capable of identifying all of these lockout locks.
We can make everyone’s job easier and safer regarding LOTO if we establish a SINGLE set of lockout lock colors used on-site. It is OK to have a couple of different colors – in fact, we can have a rainbow of colors if we want; we just have to realize the more colors, shapes, or sizes we use, the more difficult it becomes for workers to keep it all straight. If we just own up and step-up accepting the responsibility that “we will isolate our equipment and verify ZES for each energy source” and then place the keys in a lockbox for contractors to apply personal lockout locks to the lockbox, then we can SIMPLIFY our LOTO efforts immensely, thus improving safety and efficiency. The downside is a lot of opportunity for confusion and compliance issues!