Verifying Machinery or Equipment Isolation
Each authorized employee must place his or her personal lock on each energy-isolating device before beginning service work.
Process Accident - Inadequate Isolation
Service work involving many workers and many energy-isolating devices can make traditional lockout complicated.
Before any work begins on machines or equipment that have been locked out or tagged out, an authorized employee must verify that the machine or equipment has been properly isolated and de-energized. To do that, the authorized employee will attempt to turn the equipment or machinery on by cycling the energy isolation devices.
Attempting to restart the equipment is one way to confirm isolation; however, the authorized person should also test, as necessary, all components to ensure they have been properly discharged, hazardous heat has dissipated, and excessive pressures have been relieved (zero-energy states).
Best Practice: Some companies refer to their energy control program as "Lock, Tag, Try" or "Lock, Tag, Test" to emphasize this important verification step.
Application of control. The established procedures for the application of energy control (the lockout or tagout procedures) must cover the following elements and actions and must be done in the following sequence:
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- 1910.147(d)(3)
Machine or equipment isolation. All energy isolating devices that are needed to control the energy to the machine or equipment must be physically located and operated in such a manner as to isolate the machine or equipment from the energy source(s). - 1910.147(d)(6)
Verification of isolation. Prior to starting work on machines or equipment that have been locked out or tagged out, the authorized employee must verify that isolation and deenergization of the machine or equipment have been accomplished.
Knowledge Check Choose the best answer for the question.
6-8. To properly confirm isolation of equipment, what should the authorized employee do in addition to attempting to restart the equipment?
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