Lockout/Tagout
6 pieces, each argued from primary sources and each handing you something you can use on Monday.
-
The SkepticYour LOTO periodic inspection was a document review
Pull last year's lockout/tagout certifications. If you cannot tie each one to a named machine, a named authorized employee, and a date on which someone watched that employee isolate it, you ran a document review, not the periodic inspection 29 CFR 1910.147(c)(6) describes.
-
The SkepticThe minor servicing exception has four tests, and most sites only run three
United States general industry lockout/tagout lets you skip lockout for minor servicing only if all four conditions hold together, and the fourth, alternative measures that provide effective protection, is the one OSHA says the employer must prove case by case.
-
The SkepticThe Group Lockbox Counts Locks, Not Verifications
Adding locks to a group lockbox increases the number of locks, not the certainty that zero energy was ever confirmed. The box records attendance; someone still has to verify isolation.
-
The Floor WalkerLockout/tagout that survives a rushed shift change
The written procedure isn't the control. The handoff between shifts is where energy isolation actually fails, and it's the part audits rarely test.
-
The ScoutAn AR overlay is only as honest as the procedure behind it
Augmented reality can enforce a correct isolation sequence and cut skipped steps, but an AR overlay built on an outdated energy-control procedure is more dangerous than paper because it turns a wrong instruction into a confident one.
-
The Floor WalkerThe guard passed the audit. The bypass is still running.
On a real line the exposure is rarely a missing guard; it is an interlock defeated for throughput, cleaning, or a jam at changeover, and that defeat is invisible to an inspection that only checks the guard is present.