CONTROL HAZARDOUS ENERGY

 https://www.aiche.org/ccps/control-hazardous-energy-lock-out-and-tag-out

"Lock-out and tag-out (LOTO) is a critical part of a strong all-around safety program. In LOTO, maintenance employees work with production employees to positively prevent all forms of hazardous energy from causing harm. Hazardous energy comes in many forms. Electrical energy can cause electrocution and burns, provide ignition to flammable atmospheres, and activate mechanical equipment. Steam can cause burns or initiate hazardous reactions. Nitrogen can cause asphyxiation. Chemical flow can cause uncontrolled reaction and injury. When a piece of equipment is being worked on, all sources of hazardous energy must be securely and positively locked out until the equipment is operational. Untold numbers of major process safety incidents and individual injuries have been caused by failure of LOTO. A prime example is the Bhopal catastrophe, one of the worst incidents ever to have occurred, which was caused in part by the failure of LOTO. Recently, a company process safety manager called CCPS asking for help in persuading a newly acquired facility within his company to implement a LOTO program. The manager was frustrated because, as the plant director stated, “We understand completely that maintenance workers are endangered if power or material flow were allowed to equipment they are servicing. That’s why no one would ever activate a switch or valve during a maintenance activity. LOTO is just extra, unnecessary work.” The company process safety manager knew that with the plant director’s attitude, the plant could be on the road to disaster. Could CCPS help him make the case for LOTO? At CCPS, we firmly believe that it is better to learn from the mistakes of others rather than to learn by painful, personal experience. So we asked CCPS member companies to give us examples of accidents caused by LOTO failures, and to provide testimonials about the importance of LOTO. The purpose of this article is to share this information with you, to help you lead the implementation or improvement of LOTO in your
company. A brief overview of LOTO procedures and tools are provided, as are references to more detailed resources." 

Reference: https://www.aiche.org/ccps/control-hazardous-energy-lock-out-and-tag-out