Lock Out - Your Life and Limbs Depend on it Hazard Alert

Recommended Preventive Action

1. Equipment: Employers must ensure that a machine or equipment has a properly identified, lockable means of isolating the energy source, in a location familiar to all employees. The employer shall also provide a safety lock and key to employees who may have to lock out a machine or equipment.
2. Procedure: An employer shall establish a written lockout procedure specific to each machine or piece of equipment being cleaned, maintained, adjusted or repaired. Each procedure must contain the following:

   a)	No employee can work on the machine or equipment until a competent person has put the machine or equipment in a zero energy state (see Zero Energy State – Safety Considerations, below).
   b)	Each employee working on the machine or equipment must: verify that all potential energy sources have been made inoperative; lock out the machine using the safety lock and key provided by the employer; and attach a tag to the lock.
   c)	Only the person who installed the lockout device or tag on a machine or equipment may remove it, except in an emergency, or where attempts have been made to contact the original installer.

3. Training: Employers must ensure that an employee who may have to lock out a machine or equipment has been adequately trained to do so, and is acquainted with the hazards associated with the task.
4. Code of Practice: Where lockout is inappropriate, the employer must establish a code of practice in consultation with the joint health and safety committee or health and safety representative (if any), to carry out the work safely.

Zero Energy State – Safety Considerations

A lockout procedure or code of practice should take into consideration more than just power sources for a given machine or equipment. Anything that could cause the machine to spontaneously or unexpectedly move is a risk to workers, including:

• Pressurized fluids and air
• Potential mechanical energy
• Accumulators and air surge tanks
• Kinetic energy of machine members
• Loose or freely moveable machine members
• Moveable material or work pieces that are supported, retained or controlled by a machine or equipment and that could move or cause the machine or equipment to move

For more information about lockout, see sections 239 to 240 of General Regulation 91-191, under the Occupational Health and Safety Act of New Brunswick.