Posted By David Thomson EngTech I would be grateful for any information regarding the correct procedure for LockOut. I would especially like to know the regulations for lockout over a longer period than say a shift period, and what should be the correct procedure should there be difficulty reaching the person who applied the LockOut. Appreciate your help Regards Dave

Posted By David Thomson EngTech Merv Appreciate your response; any further info would be gratefully received. Thanks again Dave

Posted By Martin Hartland Hi David Our procedure for shift change overs, a bit long winded but here goes... Bear in mind that our employees have their own personal locks with name tags. 1. Person who has applied his lock & tag informs supervisor that work will carry over into the next shift. 2. Supervisor issues employee extra locks with yellow warning tags to state why the item of plant/equipment is isolated, who applied the locks and when. Supervisor records this on the tags and in a log book along with the lock numbers. 3. Employee removes his personal locks, applies the locks with the yellow tags and completed info, passes extra lock keys back to Supervisor 4. The keys for the extra locks are retained in a locked cupboard in the supervisors office. 5. The oncoming employee obtains the keys for the extra locks, removes them, the employee applies his personal locks, returns the extra locks to the Supervisor who logs the removal details in the log book. Work carries on. If an employee accidentally leaves the site without removing his personal locks attempts are made to contact him. If he cant be contacted one of two master key holders are called out to remove the locks with a master key held by them personally. An investigation is then held to ascertain why the lock was left on. Locks are cut off until myself and the Maintenance Manager are satisfied no-one is at risk. Hope this helps you Regards Martin

Posted By Hilary Charlton We do our lock out differently. We have a lock out board with all the padlocks in it. Sited in the factory we have a key box with the keys to the padlocks in it. Myself as EH&S and the Operations Manager hold the keys to open the key box to release the keys for the padlocks. Therefore, anyone can put a padlock on but it has to be taken off by someone in the know. However, in the event that neither myself nor the Operations Manager is in, a duplicate of every padlock key is held in the safe and can be issued to nominated personnel only. Hilary

Posted By Merv Newman David, I think you have the info you asked for, but e-mail me direct if you need any more. Variation from other's procedures : we allow only one key per lock. The duplicate is destroyed after purchase. That key remains on the person of the lock holder. If you can manage it, the first lock on and the last lock off is the supervisor's. (maintenance or area). At shift change workers remove their locks before going home. Incoming supervisor exchanges his lock for that of outgoing supervisor. Incoming workers then apply their locks and tags - one per person per lock-out point. Each person then does or observes the "clear" and the "try" - "clear" = checking that no-one will be hurt/no damage will be done if the installation actually does start when the "try" is made. "try" = trying to start the installation despite the supposed lock-out. In a chemical plant there may be so many lock-out points - switches, valves, drive belts etc that you can run out of locks. Then you go to a lock-box system. Which is something else again : supervisor is observed by workers while applying one lock to each lock-out point. Supervisor then puts all keys into a box and all workers apply one padlock to that box. Workers retain their own personal keys. supervisor applies the last lock to this box so that he can exchange with incoming supervisor. The basic Lock-out procedure should carry an appendix for each installation/machine which will include photographs or drawings showing where each lock-out point is to be found. For a simple machine with just a starter switch this may seem a bit much. But for anything more complicated with two or more possibilities of contacting moving parts or dangerous materials/chemicals or being hit by stored energy, then I think it is essential. Discuss.