Recently, I spent some time with a new (and unlisted) client who experienced a severe LOTO accident, resulting in a severe injury to an employee. I was asked to review their programs and practices related to the control of hazardous energy (e.g., LOTO). Everything looked good until we got to the “periodic inspection” requirement. As is the case most of the time, the employer had training records for all their employees – but there is a catch!
The employer was using computer-based training modules consisting of PowerPoint presentations that students read and progressed through at their own pace. There was no voice-over in the training, so it was 100% read on your own, and you could progress at your own pace. They had annual training records for their employees for the past 12 years, and the CBT started 11 years ago. So the last time this employee received any face-to-face training was 11 years ago.
However, the facility had no records of any “periodic inspections” for any authorized employees! The company attorney was adamant that periodic inspections would be unnecessary if the facility had annual training. This is a MISUNDERSTANDING by many attorneys and safety professionals. It is the EXACT OPPOSITE…
Training is NOT required annually, but periodic inspections ARE REQUIRED ANNUALLY.
There continues to be a debate within OSHA about whether every authorized employee must be inspected yearly. Still, there is unanimous agreement that some form of periodic inspection must be conducted annually.
It is my position that EACH authorized employee must be “inspected” annually, and the rest of this article will be my attempt to convince others to adopt this position.
This is certainly not the first time I have been challenged in this position, so I will try to make my case from both a safety and compliance perspective. But before I make my case, let me first explain how the accident is an excellent example of why periodic inspections on EACH authorized employee are a CRITICAL PATH to safety in a LOTO process. Simply put… the injured employee could not read! He finally admitted it when pushed a bit after the accident. Only his wife knew, and she helped him succeed for 34 years, with him only being able to sign his name. Management was shocked; they did not know and could not understand how he had hidden it for so long. But this is not as uncommon as many think. When we assume employees know what they are reading WITHOUT having some means to VERIFY THEY UNDERSTOOD what they were trained on, we are opening a huge gap in our safety process. This case lamented my belief that these inspections are critical to LOTO’s success.
I was as guilty as anyone for not verifying students’ knowledge of my safety trainings until PSM came along.
Periodic inspections are designed to identify failures in LOTO execution! Had this employee undergone a periodic inspection annually, it would not have taken 11 years, and the loss of a body part to identify this employee, who struggled with executing the simplest of lockouts. I guess we look back and consider him lucky that all he lost was a body part, not his life. He was very clever in hiding his LOTO shortcomings. When he did confined space entries and other “group” activities, he just followed and did what the other workers did and put his lock on the lockbox. When working alone, matters went haywire as he had no one to mimic.
Many periodic inspections are conducted individually, but one takeaway from this review was that my system was flawed! I learned a trick from my brother during my first turnaround: to get as many periodic inspections done as possible, since there were countless opportunities to walk down LOTOs. I could do one (1) inspection and get 50 workers inspected under this one inspection. I estimate I would get 75% of all my inspections done during the turn-around, which meant I stood an excellent chance of not finding the same issue that injured this worker!
However, a one-on-one inspection would indeed have identified this employee’s need for additional training, as he could not explain even the most basic aspects of his responsibilities under the program. Of course, the attorney made one great point… had the facility identified these deficiencies, the standard required them to be retrained, and they would have just sent him through the same CBT training again! So, in essence, the breakdown in the system was due to the training method, not to the lack of periodic inspection. But his point paints a nice picture of how LOTO should be approached as a “management system,” and the entire system should be reviewed annually to identify any potential gaps.
So is it really true that periodic inspections are required ANNUALLY and that EACH authorized employee is required to be inspected?
YES, each authorized employee must be inspected annually. Here are the reasons why:
First, from a compliance perspective, the standard’s portion covers “periodic inspection”…
1910.147(c)(6) Periodic inspection.
1910.147(c)(6)(i) The employer shall conduct a periodic inspection of the energy control procedure at least annually to ensure that the procedure and the requirements of this standard are being followed.
1910.147(c)(6)(i)(A) The periodic inspection shall be performed by an authorized employee other than the ones(s) utilizing the energy control procedure being inspected.
1910.147(c)(6)(i)(B) The periodic inspection shall be conducted to correct any deviations or inadequacies identified.
1910.147(c)(6)(i)(C) Where lockout is used for energy control, the periodic inspection shall include a review, between the inspector and each authorized employee, of that employee's responsibilities under the energy control procedure being inspected.
1910.147(c)(6)(i)(D) Where tagout is used for energy control, the periodic inspection shall include a review, between the inspector and each authorized and affected employee, of that employee's responsibilities under the energy control procedure being inspected, and the elements set forth in paragraph (c)(7)(ii) of this section.
1910.147(c)(6)(ii) The employer shall certify that the periodic inspections have been performed. The certification shall identify the machine or equipment on which the energy control procedure was being utilized, the date of the inspection, the employees included in the inspection, and the person performing the inspection.
At face value, it is not spelled out that EACH authorized employee must undergo an inspection. But when we look at the “Training and Communication – Employee retraining” section of the standard, it comes a bit more into focus:
1910.147(c)(7)(iii) Employee retraining. 1910.147(c)(7)(iii)(A) Retraining shall be provided for all authorized and affected employees whenever there is a change in their job assignments, a change in machines, equipment, or processes that present a new hazard, or when there is a change in the energy control procedures. 1910.147(c)(7)(iii)(B) Additional retraining shall also be conducted whenever a periodic inspection under paragraph (c)(6) of this section reveals, or whenever the employer has reason to believe that there are deviations from or inadequacies in the employee’s knowledge or use of the energy control procedures. |
As you may have noticed, nowhere does it state that training is required annually. However, it is made clear that the periodic inspections must be done annually. Please do not think that training is the same thing or somehow that training annually replaces the need to conduct periodic inspections. The two activities are COMPLETELY SEPARATE, and one cannot replace the other.
OSHA intended the periodic inspection process to be the means used to VALIDATE that authorized employees understood their roles and responsibilities, including how to identify hazardous energy, properly isolate it, and verify a zero-energy state. This would be ON TOP OF any testing done at the training sessions. OSHA wanted employees to DEMONSTRATE that they could lock out equipment! And they wanted EACH authorized employee to do so on an annual basis. As long as the authorized employee could pass the inspection, he/she was not required to attend training unless there was a change in the program/procedures or a new piece of equipment or energy source was introduced.
So, if equipment, programs/procedures, or new energy sources are not changed, the only thing that could trigger refresher training is the problematic periodic inspection of an authorized employee.
If each authorized employee is not inspected annually, how will an employer know if the authorized employee(s) are executing the procedures properly? After all, training them annually is not required. So many facilities are doing neither; they are not inspecting the employees or training them annually, which is making matters that much worse. The facility claims nothing has changed, and the 2-3 inspections they do each year do not identify any issues, so they have not trained or inspected most of their authorized employees for years. We got hired to audit the facility and, in less than ½ day, found major execution issues. The management team was truly shocked at what we found and how easy it was to find. And, of course, all of our findings would have been identified during a periodic inspection by an authorized employee!