LOTO Made Easy

Lock Out Tag Out procedures

Lock Out Tag Out (LOTO) procedures just got a lot easier thanks to The MinRisk App, TEG Risk’s machine risk assessment app.

TEG Risk Director Hamish Baker says The MinRisk App has effectively automated the process and can now produce LOTO cards/placards for placement at your machine.

“Organisations need to minimise the risks associated with their machinery any way they can. When it comes to cleaning, or the maintenance and repair of machinery, this means applying energy isolation or Lock Out Procedures – sometimes referred to as Lock Out Tag Out (LOTO).”

The MinRisk App and LOTO

TEG Risk has enhanced The MinRisk App which can now produce LOTO cards. These cards include information on the energy sources, instructional steps and informative/marked up photos showing where the isolators are and how to secure them in the safe state.

“Our app can produce the cards in a PDF output so you can size the cards to your liking, then laminate and place at the machine. The file could also be printed to a plastic placard if a more durable solution was required.”

“This means we can collect the required information very quickly on our iPads while we carry out site wide machine risk assessments so not only do our clients receive a comprehensive machine risk assessment but LOTO cards as well.”

Existing clients

Hamish says most of the data and images required to produce the LOTO cards already exists for those clients who we have already completed machine risk assessments for The MinRisk App.

“This information can be supplemented very cost effectively to allow us to produce the required LOTO cards.

“Alternatively, if you believe you have adequate documented machine risk assessments you may simply want to have effective LOTO cards at your machines to help your operators and engineers. In this instance we can carry out a very quick assessment at each machine to produce the LOTO cards.”

If you are interested in our LOTO cards feel free to contact us at www.tegrisk.com to get more details.

Hamish says these need to be applied in addition to any safety functions e.g. interlocks in order to comply with the Health and Safety in Employment Regulations 1995.

“The lock-out procedures should be clearly communicated and easily accessible. Our experience is that LOTO is not done well in practice and even if the procedures are documented they are buried away in a wordy Standard Operating Procedure that sits in a folder on a shelf somewhere ready to be pulled out at the next safety or quality audit.”

He says that an improvement on this practice is to have informative pictorial based placards at the machine.

“They are at the machine, close at hand for quick reference and with pictures they can be informative even when literacy or language is a potential issue.”

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