Text For Citation: 01 Item/Group: 001 Hazard: LOCKOUT

Section 5(a)(1) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970: The employer did not furnish employment and a place of employment which were free from recognized hazards that were causing or likely to cause death or serious physical harm to employees in that employees were exposed to hazard of being struck by bundles of steel rods on a gravity type roller conveyor while the employees were performing maintenance on the conveyor on December 7, 1989. Safety training instructions and procedures were not implemented to assure that (1) the conveyor would not be loaded with bundles of steel bar stock by the yard crane, and if loaded, (2) the bundles would be blocked, barricaded, or otherwise prevented from movement, past a given point to prevent the bundle from hitting the employees. Among other methods, one feasible and acceptable abatement method to correct the hazard is to enforce an adequate plant lock-out procedure such as the stipulated by ANSI Z244.1-1982 Sec. 4&5, American National Standard of Minimum Safety Requirements for Lock-out/Tag-out of energy sources for Personnel protection, and ANSI B20.1-1976, Sec. 5.02.5 and 5.05, Safety Standard for Conveyors and Related Equipment. Essential elements of the lockout procedure would include: 1) The selection of the appropriate lock-out point and device or method of lock-out, for conveyor de-activation. 2) Establish a written procedure and policy, including training and pre- assignment verification of compliance with procedure to assure the de-activition of the conveyor operaion prior to employees exposure. 3) Periodically evaluate the program and procedure and strictly enforce all its provisions.