Lockout / TagoutLOTO

Lockout/tagout is the control of hazardous energy during servicing and maintenance — the discipline that prevents a machine from starting, a pipe from pressurising, or a capacitor from discharging while someone is inside it. OSHA 29 CFR 1910.147 governs it for general industry and requires four things in sequence: identification of every energy source (electrical, hydraulic, pneumatic, thermal, mechanical, chemical, gravitational, stored), isolation of those sources, application of locks and tags with a named authorised person, and verification of the zero-energy state — the try-out step that proves the lock worked before the worker enters.

The failure that kills people is the shortcut around the sequence, and the citation OSHA writes most often is the one for skipping verification or for an energy source the procedure did not list. 1910.147 also requires a periodic inspection — typically annual — of each energy-control procedure against the actual equipment, because procedures drift from the hardware they describe. A LOTO program in a QEHS platform holds the machine-specific procedures, the authorised-employee list, the periodic-inspection schedule, and the return-to-service sign-off in one record, so the lock and the paperwork do not live in two places. See permit to work, lock-tag-try, and confined space.