Boosting Compliance with TagLink Lockout

By Mark Banus (reprinted from Occupational Health & Safety Magazine by Stevens Publishing, July 1998)

Virtually every major manufacturing, industrial, and processing facility in the country has a form of Lockout Tagout system in place. However, many of the present systems—while they are effective at preventing injury, death, and damage to equipment—are often just evolved versions of the traditional handwritten methods of the past.

Traditional Lockout Tagout methods rely heavily on human memory and handwritten or typed procedures on paper. Each time the procedure is repeated, the full, original cost of creating a tagout is incurred again and again. There are a number of reasons why a computer running the appropriate Lockout Tagout software can help with compliance in almost every industry and type of facility.

Computerizing the Lockout Tagout process can result in significant savings in both time and cost. It eases the administrative burden of OSHA Lockout Tagout compliance. Computers store and retrieve information very efficiently, and by harnessing this ability we can streamline the Lockout Tagout process to make it faster, more efficient, and enhancing the safety features. In fact, automation can actually help increase the safety factor through standardizing procedures for emergent and recurring work.

Lockout Tagout software allows the capture and storage of information, eliminating the need for a human being to remember "how we did this last time." Procedures can even be created in advance by the people with the most technical knowledge and experience, sorted in memory, and be instantly available when needed, every time they are needed.

Safety officers and maintenance supervisors will always have full access to the most knowledge and information—even though the person who originally provided or input that information may be absent or may have left the company.

Computerizing the Lockout Tagout process can result in significant savings in both time and cost. It eases the administrative burden of OSHA Lockout Tagout compliance. Computers store and retrieve information very efficiently, and by harnessing this ability we can streamline the Lockout Tagout process to make it faster, more efficient, and enhancing the safety features. In fact, automation can actually help increase the safety factor through standardizing procedures for emergent and recurring work.

Lockout Tagout software allows the capture and storage of information, eliminating the need for a human being to remember "how we did this last time." Procedures can even be created in advance by the people with the most technical knowledge and experience, sorted in memory, and be instantly available when needed, every time they are needed.

Safety officers and maintenance supervisors will always have full access to the most knowledge and information—even though the person who originally provided or input that information may be absent or may have left the company.

Automated Lockout Tagout with built-in levels of approval ensures that tagouts that have not been approved will not be issued. Conversely, the software will also track and prevent tags or locks from being removed before the approvals or sign-offs are entered. This has an obvious impact on worker health and safety, as well as directly addressing compliance issues. Levels of security in the software also prevent unauthorized access, another boon for both safety and compliance.

Using the computer, the procedure established for a particular tagout will be automatically used again in the future, resulting in standardized procedures that can be easily followed by everyone.

One of the major time-and-money-saving benefits of Lockout Tagout software becomes rapidly apparent when recurring or repetitive work is involved. Once a procedure is set up in the computer, a tagout can be quickly created that can be used over and over or modified as necessary. The data is only entered once, which can be a great savings of time and manpower.

A Typical Task

Let's take a relatively uncomplicated task, such as routine maintenance on a machine that involves ten Lockout Tagout points. Using the traditional method, the log is written out, often by hand, and tags are written out by hand. The amount of sheer labor involved can become staggering, not to mention the possibility of inadvertent procedure violations because of missed step or incorrect information while copying the log or writing out the tag.

Using Lockout Tagout software greatly simplifies the task. The tagout is accessed on the screen and automatically updated with the current date and time. Because often lengthy procedure information is already present, the authorizations can be entered very quickly.

Some software, through built-in programming or customization, allows the tags to be automatically printed on an ordinary office laser printer, conforming exactly to the information contained in the tagout and eliminating the danger of missed or incorrect tags. Some software can even be customized to use the company's own forms and present process.

As the work and the authorizations are completed, the Lockout Tagout software automatically captures the history. The history in a format that meets the OSHA requirements, becomes a vital part of the compliance issue.

Total Control

Lockout Tagout software is very beneficial to virtually everyone involved in the facility, from management to the worker on the floor. Constant access to the best information and standardized procedures offers the highest level of safety for the worker.

Total control of standardized approval procedures and the ability to instantly monitor or review the Lockout Tagout status of equipment during maintenance or repairs make the job easier and faster for the maintenance supervisor and safety officer or plant engineer. The ability of the software to create tagouts, use standardized procedures, and capture history make compliance considerably easier and more certain. It also puts the highly skilled and costly maintenance and safety personnel back on the job, rather than taking their time to performing administrative paper work.

The inherent time and cost savings available through the use of an automated Lockout Tagout system looks very nice for the company CFO. That department may also look toward the compliance issue as a cost saving method. Cost avoidance through strict compliance, reducing the possibility of worker injury, equipment damage, or a citation by OSHA, is a very real benefit of using Lockout Tagout software and the power of the computer in every facility.

Back...