Lockout tagout (LOTO) procedures are required for businesses in many different fields. For this reason, it is important for every business owner to ensure their business does not require established lockout tagout procedures. Should you determine your business does need to establish lockout tagout procedures, please review OSHA Standard 1910.147 before creating the procedures.

This standard governs all things lockout tagout for OSHA. Unfortunately, if you are not an expert in the field of lockout tagout, this procedure can read like it was written in another language. And even after you establish your procedures, maintaining them can be another nightmare unto itself.

For these reasons, many companies consult with a firm which specializes in creating lockout tagout procedures and in maintaining them. By doing this, the company has placed the burden of creating a viable and sustainable solution onto a qualified third party, who can also maintain the procedures.

And while this option might seem cost inhibitive at first, it is surprisingly affordable to hire a third party to assist you. It is certainly less expensive than hiring a lockout tagout specialist on a full time basis as a staff member, and when you consider what the cost of a fine from OSHA could be, the costs to hire professionals become virtually nonexistent.

If you have a need to establish lockout tagout (LOTO) procedures, but are unsure of how to do so, please contact us so that we can help you. If you have anything to add about lockout tagout procedures, please leave a comment.

One of the most common reasons clients reach out to us is a need to update their existing lockout tagout procedures. These clients had set up their lockout tagout procedures some time in the past, monitored minor changes, and felt generally comfortable with what they were doing, but now needs to make some kind of major overhaul to their procedures. And they now reach out to us because this kind of update can actually be more difficult than establishing new lockout tagout procedures.

The reason it can be so difficult is that, when establishing new lockout tagout procedures, you have a clean slate to work with, but when you are updating existing lockout tagout procedures, you need to fit something new into an existing space. Sometimes this transition is very smooth and easy. But even in the case of a near seamless transition, we still recommend having the new plan professionally reviewed by a qualified third party safety auditing firm.

But in the event that the transition is not so smooth, a full audit of the lockout tagout procedures may be required. The last thing you want to do is to try to make your procedures work; i.e. you do not want to leave them with a sense of “good enough.” This is what leads to safety issues in the workplace.

If you have any questions about updating or changing your lockout tagout  procedures, please contact us. And if you have anything to add about transitioning your procedures, please leave a comment.