Lockout-Tagout, Training

Lock In Best Lockout Practices

A University of Vermont–hosted safety site has published what it calls the “Fatal 5″—the primary causes of LO/TO-preventable injuries. Make sure these hazards aren’t present in your workplace.

OSHA requires you to train employees to prevent lockout/tagout (LO/TO) accidents in the workplace. Have you explained how to avoid the "Fatal 5" to your employees?

1 .   Failure to stop equipment. Sure, this sounds like common sense, but there’s much more involved. Some workers value productivity above safety and others feel that their age or experience with equipment make them immune from risk. "Taking the trouble" to properly safeguard energized equipment is essential in all cases.

2.    Failure to disconnect from the power source. When working with and around electric equipment, some workers believe that simply operating the on/off switch will ensure their safety. They ignore the fact that the switch may be defective or that power may find its way through a short circuit or other source.


Think you have no time to train? Think again. BLR’s 7-Minute Safety Trainer helps you fulfill key OSHA-required training tasks in as little as 7 minutes. Try it at no cost and see!


3   Failure to drain residual energy. There’s a reason that televisions carry warnings about trying to open the case even if the set is disconnected. That’s because many electrical devices store power in a capacitor or battery. Even unplugged, the risk remains. A compressed spring, hot pipe, pressurized tank, or heavy object hanging overhead can store energy even when the initial source of power is disconnected.

4.   Accidental restart of machinery. Even if an employee knows how to shut down equipment before working on it, his or her co-workers may not. In too many instances, unknowing employees cause injury to their co-workers.

5.   Failure to clear work areas before restarting. Restarting machinery must be performed as carefully as shutting it down and locking it out. A repair tool left in the works can fly out, or a restart while a co-worker remains in the path of danger represents as great a hazard as not locking out the machine at all.


Can you picture safety training in effective, 7-minute sessions? Get the details.


E-Z Training at a Phenomenal Price

To train employees to avoid the "Fatal 5" and other LO/TO accidents, the BLR® 7-Minute Safety Trainer has not one, but two perfect sessions. The first is "What Is Lockout/Tagout?" and the second is "Preparing for and Performing a LO/TO Shutdown." Each of these sessions provides you with a detailed trainer’s outline as well as an illustrated handout, quiz, and quiz answers to get your points across quickly—and cost-effectively.

All told, this "trainer’s bible" contains 50 prewritten meetings covering almost every aspect of safety you’d want or need to train on, in a format designed to be taught in as little as 7 minutes. Major topics include:

—Confined spaces
—Electrical safety
—Fire safety and emergency response
—HazCom
—Machine guarding and lockout/tagout
—Material handling
—PPE use and care
—Housekeeping/slips, trips, and falls
—And dozens more

Just make as many copies as you need of the included handouts and quizzes, and you’re ready to train.

Equally important is that the program ships new meetings every quarter to respond to new and changed regulations. This service is included in the program price, which averages just over $1 a working day. In fact, this is one of BLR’s most popular safety programs.

If you’d like to personally evaluate 7-Minute Safety Trainer and see how it can build safety awareness, we’ll be happy to send it to you for 30 days on a no-cost, no-obligation trial basis. Just let us know, and we’ll arrange it.

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