When establishing your lockout tagout procedures, you have several options. You can establish them in-house with the people you have in place. You can go hire a number of new employees to help with this process. Or you can hire a qualified third party to work with you, and to help you to create your lockout tagout procedures.

When making the decision between these options, you need to first consider the timeframe you have for the completion of your project, as well as what your expected budget is for the project. If you have no money available to hire additional staff, for instance, that will help you make your decision. Similarly, if you need the project completed within a set period of time, you need to determine whether or not you have the correct people in place to meet that goal, and how long it would take you to train new staff. These two questions are usually the easiest way to help determine the best option for you.

Next, you should contact a qualified firm which specializes in lockout tagout procedures. This firm can give you an idea of what the costs will be for your project, as well as the expected timeframe and the potential issues which could arise in your unique situation. With all of this information, you can make an informed decision on how to proceed.

Should you have any questions about establishing your lockout tagout procedures, please contact us. And if you have anything to add about establishing your lockout tagout procedures, please leave a comment.

If your company has a need to establish and monitor lockout tagout procedures, it is important you do so correctly. it is important first for employee safety; lockout tagout procedures save lives, and as such need to be accurate and effective. But it is also important as a requirement per OSHA through Standard 1910.147.

OSHA created Standard 1910.147 to help employers create a safer workplace in relation to lockout tagout hazards. These hazards are life threatening, and ever present. But establishing comprehensive and effective lockout tagout procedures is only the first half of effective lockout tagout safety. Properly monitoring and updating your procedures is equally important and, perhaps, more difficult.

If is for this reason that many business owners hire third party firms to monitor their lockout tagout procedures. Unfortunately, these firms can often be expensive and drain your bottom line. Conversely, if these employers attempt to monitor their lockout tagout procedures on their own and do not have a qualified employee with experience in lockout tagout, they could expose their employees to an unsafe work environment, and themselves to significant fines.

Fortunately, there is now an alternative. You can utilize safety software which allows you to monitor and update your lockout tagout procedures from anywhere an internet connection is available. This software also monitors your procedures, helping you to ensure compliance even when you aren’t looking.

If you have any questions about monitoring your lockout tagout procedures or our Factory Solutions Software, please contact us. If you would like to add anything about the importance of properly monitoring your lockout tagout procedures, please leave a message.

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.