Many people have been seriously injured - or worse - while performing routine maintenance on machinery that should have been perfectly safe. Isolating your machines using the correct lockout procedures minimises the risk of unexpected start-ups while maintenance work is in progress, protecting the lives and wellbeing of those doing the work.
Here at Label Source, we sell a range of maintenance tags to help you identify machinery and equipment that, for safety purposes, should not be used. With clear instructions like 'Do not use' and 'Do not start - men working on machine', our maintenance tags are ideal for locking out heavy machinery during services and repairs (although we also stock labels that warn of high voltages, poisons, harmful gases, and other hazards).
In case you're not convinced of how important maintenance tags can be, here's just one example of what can happen when machines aren't properly 'tagged out' while maintenance work takes place. In November 2005, two men in Lanarkshire, Scotland were cleaning the inside of an animal feed mixer when the machine started up unexpectedly and killed them both. The HSE investigated this incident and found that it could have been "easily prevented" if the machine had been properly isolated:
"The process of isolation means establishing a break in the power supply, normally by using a lockable switch, and then securing the switch in the 'off' position using a padlock to prevent it being switched back on until the work is finished." - John Madden, HSE Inspector, speaking in 2008
Once you have completed the lockout process described above, it's important to use a maintenance tag to label the locked machinery and inform other workers that the machine is not to be used (most maintenance tags leave space to explain why the machine is locked out).
The incident you just read about resulted - full story here - in a total fine of £63,750 for the two companies involved, but far more importantly, it led to two deaths that could easily have been prevented. Click here to browse our maintenance tag range, and don't let the same thing happen on your watch!
