Understanding Lockout/Tagout: Are We Overlooking Non-Electrical Hazards?

Safety Team,

Sharing as received.

Enclosed is a near-miss abstract that involves lockout/tagout (LOTO) operation. Many workers had the impression that LOTO only applies to electrical systems. On the contrary, it applies to stored energy (e.g., gravity, steam, compressed air, hydraulics, utilities, etc.). Please share the enclosure and its lessons learned with your team. Also, attached are two more "Lesson Learned" PDF files for your use.

Regards,

Thank you for sharing. Regarding the first two attachments, I would prefer to categorize them as Unsafe Condition Reporting rather than Near Miss. Do you agree with me? If not, how can we classify these two under Near Miss?

Thank you.

Dear Dipil, Good question. I agree with you, but let me give an example: if a bolt falls from the top of a floor or somewhere and nobody gets hurt, what do we call this? I'm sure we call it a "NEAR MISS." If we analyze this scenario in depth, we can determine how the bolt fell from the floor or somewhere and surely find the root cause. Most of the time, we are supposed to find that the reason was an unsafe act or unsafe condition.

Unsafe acts or unsafe conditions only lead to near misses (except in very few rare cases); most of the time, they cause accidents. My understanding is that a NEAR MISS will not happen without an unsafe act or unsafe condition. Waiting for your view on this matter.

Regards,

In the incident case scenario that you explained, after the incident happens, it is called a Near Miss. Before the incident occurs, it is an unsafe act or a man-made unsafe condition. Companies even follow two schemes: one is called Near Miss Reporting, and the other is Unsafe Condition & Potential Unsafe Act Reporting. Both have their own significance and need to be dealt with separately. This varies from industry to industry and from company to company. Whatever the case may be, the ultimate goal should be incident prevention. That's it.

Regards