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RoboticsApplying your own lock and tag
Every energy isolating device of the robot is in the off position. Now you, the authorized employee doing the servicing, put your own lock on each one so it cannot be moved, with your identity on it. Where a device cannot take a lock, a tag goes on instead and clearly forbids operating it. It is the device application step of the federal lockout/tagout rule.
Free to startScenarios
- Each isolating device of the robot can take a lock.
- One isolating device cannot be locked, so a tag is used.
- A crew services the robot together with a group lockbox.
The steps
- Use the locks and tags the employer provides for energy control, never for anything else.
- Affix your own assigned lock to each energy isolating device, holding it in the safe or off position.
- Check that each device shows your identity as the employee who applied it.
- Where a device cannot be locked, affix a tag that clearly says operating it from the safe or off position is prohibited, with a legend such as Do Not Start or Do Not Operate.
- Fasten the tag at the same point a lock would go; if it cannot go on the device, place it as close as safely possible, where anyone trying to operate the device sees it at once.
- In a group lockout, each authorized employee puts a personal lock on the group lockbox when starting work.
Safety rules that stop the station
- Only the authorized employees who are doing the servicing apply the locks or tags.
- If the device can be locked, a lock is used; a tag alone on a lockable device needs added measures that give the same safety as a lock.
- Tags are only warnings: they do not physically hold the device, can give a false sense of security and are never bypassed, ignored or removed without the authorized person responsible for them.
To pass
- Each energy isolating device holds a lock or tag of the authorized employee doing the work.
- Locks and tags are durable, standardized by color, shape or size, and identify the employee who applied them.
- Locks are substantial enough that only excessive force or bolt cutters would remove them; tag ties are non-reusable, self-locking and hold at least 50 pounds.
- Tags stay legible and understandable to everyone in the area, even in wet, damp or corrosive places.
Official source
Federal · OSHA, 29 CFR 1910.147(c)(5) and (d)(4)
29 CFR 1910.147, The control of hazardous energy (lockout/tagout)
GovInfo publishes 29 CFR 1910.147 free: paragraphs (c)(5) and (d)(4) set how the locks and tags are made and applied.
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