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Calculate Your Lockout-Tagout Risk With This Tool

Published: Mar 17 2016

Calculate Your Lockout-Tagout Risk Approximately 3 million workers service equipment and face the greatest risk of injury if lockout-tagout is not properly implemented. Companies continue to struggle with this regulation – OSHA issued more than 3,000 lockout-tagout violations in 2015, making it the fifth-most cited violation. The most common way companies are failing to comply is by not having lockout-tagout procedures, as outlined in 1910.147(c)(4)(i):

Procedures should be developed, documented, and utilized for the control of potentially hazardous energy when employees are engaged in the activities covered by this section.

According to CBT partner ESC Services, confusion around this part of the regulation often revolves around the question of what equipment requires a procedure. Since 1989, OSHA has required the use of machine-specific lockout-tagout procedures for each piece of equipment that fails to meet all eight elements outlined in 1910.147(c)(4)(i):

  1. The machine or equipment has no potential for stored or residual energy or reaccumulation of stored energy after shut down which could endanger employees
  2. The machine or equipment has a single energy source which can be readily identified and isolated
  3. The isolation and locking out of that energy source will completely deenergize and deactivate the machine or equipment
  4. The machine or equipment is isolated from that energy source and locked out during servicing or maintenance
  5. A single lockout device will achieve a locked-out condition
  6. The lockout device is under the exclusive control of the authorized employee performing the servicing or maintenance
  7. The servicing or maintenance does not create hazards for other employees
  8. The employer, in utilizing this exception, has had no accidents involving the unexpected activation or reenergization of the machine or equipment during servicing or maintenance

The purpose of machine specific lockout tagout procedures are to guide an authorized employee through a sequential process that renders a piece of equipment or process safe in what is referred to as zero-energy-state.  Once the lockout-tagout procedures are followed by the authorized employee(s), service and maintenance can be performed on the equipment safely because all forms of energy are isolated and controlled by each individual person servicing the equipment.  In short, when it’s properly locked out, there’s no chance for unexpected start-up to occur.

Calculate Your Lockout-Tagout Risk

Not having a lockout-tagout procedure exposes your company to a maximum of $70,000 in fines for each piece of equipment. To help companies determine their risk, ESC has developed an easy-to-use tool that outlines lockout-tagout risk based on five factors. Check out ESC’s risk calculation tool and talk to your CBT specialist to learn how CBT and ESC can help you eliminate lockout-tagout risk at your facility.

Lockout-Tagout Risk Calculator
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