Oops, that should read cord & plug in the title. Our corparate safety guru's are here now. These are guys who have never gotten their hands dirty. Today one of them asked me how to lock out the conveyor in front of us, I repectfully replied" there is no LOTO provision on the starter" and I removed the cord cap from the recpt & tagged the cord. The safety guy then said that is OK unless you get a certain distance away,he specified no distanc though. He then offered no more advice as to how to secure it.

Do any of you use the plug lock-out devices or how do you hadle it.? I thought if the cord was tagged then it is the same as locked out and that anyone who plugged it in would be violating LOTO? But instead it seems they wanted to write me up on it and that I was to blame. Sorry for the long post but it is just very frustrating to follow what our in-house safety guy says and then have the corp boys want to nail you for a violation. BTW our in house safety guy is worthless, I have argued about the 3' clearance in front of switchgear with him before. Also had several other issues with him.

[This message has been edited by spkjpr (edited 05-11-2004).]

[This message has been edited by spkjpr (edited 05-13-2004).]

Ask to see published company policy available to all the supports or conflicts with his instructions.

Next time, to be safe, lop the cord connector off about 3 inches down the cord and lock the cord cap in your toolbox. Reinstall only after your other related work is completed.

Barney, that is part of the problem. No one seems to have a written policy for this and we are getting thumped for things that have been verbal policy for 12 years. Cutting off the plug is not real practical, most of the cords just barely reach now. We were not doing electrical work at the time, I was helping the mechanics on a mechanical problem.

I was just wondering if anyone uses plug lockouts like I have seen in the various catalogs. Oh well, I guess I will have to follow this post and also spend some time after work waiting on our safety man to discuss it with him.

Every employer will usually have their own version of “safety culture.” In an accident situation, armwaving and verbal folklore don’t buy an employer much when litigation and governmental investigation are involved. One would think that 12 years would be an adequate period to have made precisely documented procedures available to all.

There are components like the Hubbell Plugout device for “locking out” cord-connected electrical equipment www.hubbell-wiring.com/library/pressreleases/hub9805.pdf

Bjarney,
That's a rather handy looking device there.
Wish we had something over here like that!.

Darn,
Sorry I don't want to get silly here, but there was a case over here, where an Electrician was nearly charged with Intentional Damage to a customers appliance when he cut the plug off of the thing to render the unsafe equipment unusable.
Thankfully the Police, used common-sense and the customer was urged to drop the charge.
Do something to idiot-proof a piece of gear and look where it gets you........

Thanks, guys. Trumpy, that is what worried me about cutting the plug off. Our current enviroment is that the co. is looking for someone to fire over safety issues. Lack of written, well defined policy and the fact that our wok comp incident rate is too high. This is a good board although I do not get here often, too much time spent working!

That could happen here as well. Legally, the customer could report an act of "criminal damage," and have the guy charged. Such a charge is classed as a criminal offense (in U.S. terms, a felony). Sometimes trying to protect somebody is a thankless task.

I think that the charge would be "Criminal Damage To Property" here, and the degree of severity (felony v. misdemeanor) would depend on the cost of repair / the cost of complete replacement, depending on whether or not the prosecuting attorney got some last night

Check out the following links for cord & plug LOTO goodies...


http://catalog.bradyserve.co m/cgi...amp;CT2type=C&CT2=2904&CTcount=3
http://catalog.bradyserve.co m/cgi...amp;CT2type=C&CT2=2904&CTcount=3
http://catalog.bradyserve.co m/cgi...amp;CT2type=C&CT2=2904&CTcount=3
http://catalog.bradyserve.co m/cgi...amp;CT2type=C&CT2=2904&CTcount=3

All of these are available from http://www.grainger.com
http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/se...%2FSafety+%26+Security%2FLockout+Devices

Click on "Plug and Cord Lockouts"

BTW, Trumpy - check out http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/static.jsp?page=int_asiapacific.html

[This message has been edited by DougW (edited 05-18-2004).]