One of the primary focuses we have here at PF Safety is lockout procedures. We have discussed this topic several times before because we take lockout tagout very seriously, as we understand the potential threat to your business and your employees should there ever be a lockout tagout miscalculation.

But as important and difficult as it is to properly comply with the standards initially, it can be even harder and vastly more important to sustain accurate procedures. An audit team such as ours can define your library and design proper placards, but it becomes your responsibility to monitor changes and redefine your procedure library over time. Now, the reason most companies hire professionals to set up their procedures initially is that it is so difficult to get a company up to speed in this critical area.

However, lockout tagout procedures are not suddenly learned when a company is brought up to code, and the same questions and uncertainties which caused a company to hire a professional are still present. What’s worse is that many business owners assume, because they have had a procedure put in place, they no longer need to worry about their lockout procedures and do not monitor them.

This can be an extremely costly mistake. It is imperative to consistently monitor your lockout tagout procedures, otherwise you will fall back out of compliance. Things change, and unless you are monitoring your machines night and day, something can get past you and create a very serious problem.

Fortunately, there is advanced monitoring software released by many companies which can help your company maintain compliant lockout tagout procedures. If you have any questions whatsoever regarding this extremely critical standard, please contact us. And, if you know of any other tips for maintaining compliance between audits, please post them in the comments.