LOTO locks can be keyed alike. For example, equipment/field locks can all be keyed to a SINGLE key; however, personal/individual locks MUST BE individually keyed (e.g., 1 key – 1 lock). Before starting work ask yourself this simple but very important question: Do I have EXCLUSIVE/SOLE control of each and every isolation device protecting ME?
This is the fundamental premise of energy control (i.e., LOTO)! In other words, there is no way anyone could energize any of the energy sources while I am working because I have EXCLUSIVE CONTROL of every single isolation device protecting me.
We worked a Shutdown/Turnaround last year and we came across a “flip-flop” in the facility’s practice of “group lockout”. Someone, somewhere, somehow got it in their head that it was safe, compliant, perfectly acceptable to have “individual locks” with multiple keys. In other words, we came across dozens of group lockouts with multiple workers in the “group”, each having their own personal key to the single lock on the lockbox, while they’re working. Their argument was that “keyed alike locks” are allowed in group lockout.
Do you see their flip-flop? Let me explain…