OSHA Rules and Regulations

According to OSHA (The Occupational Health and Safety Administration) approximately 3 million workers in the US service equipment and face the greatest risk of injury if Lockout/Tagout is not properly implemented. Lockout/Tagout prevents an estimated 120 facilities and 60,000 injuries each year in US alone.

Barcadi’s Bottling Corporation faces fines of more than $190,000 after an OSHA investigation into the death of a worker in its Jacksonville Florida facility.

The governing body OSHA (the Occupational Health and Safety Administration) are responsible for the enforcement of health and safety conditions across the entirely of the United States of America. The body has several standards for various types of working environment, but the one of the most important things that you should be concerned about is OSHA violations.

The Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) has several additional requirements for the enforcement of lockout/tagout, which can be found inside section 1910.147 of the Federal Register (The Control of Hazardous Energy (lockout/tagout).

Once lockout/tagout procedures have been used and any maintenance has been completed, authorised employees can then go about the process of removing the lockout.

Why do we perform lockout? Well, quite simply, it is to maintain control of an energy source, and to stop machinery from being switched on while essential maintenance and service is being carried out on that particular piece of machinery.

Under the rules and regulations of the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) it is the responsibility of an employer to provide relevant training in the application and enforcement of lockout/tagout procedures.

It is a legal requirement placed upon the employer to ensure that regular inspections are in place that comprehensively cover an energy control program and ensure it is effective and being correctly enforced.

OSHA’s extensive documentation found within the Federal Register extends to the use of lockout/tagout equipment, and there are several standards you need to be aware of and understand before the implantation of your own energy control program.

By now, you should hopefully know exactly what an energy control procedure is.  But how do you go about developing your own energy control procedure, and what must you ensure you address in the procedure itself?