Canadian Occupational Safety

34 Canadian Occupational Safety | www.cos-mag.com Flange locks can be easily adapted for vessel heads, flush blinds, man- ways or any inline equipment that gets higher than average service. The locks let maintenance workers know which one is online and which one is ready for service. "It's a physical guarantee that you can't take anything apart until it's ready. It's like the child lock on the medicine cabinet; it's the last line of protection," says Parrott, who is the vice-president of marketing for Intego Industrial Safety in Spruce Grove, Alta. "We haven't had that for bolted flanges before, but now you have a physical barrier that physically prevents people from hurting themselves." The flange locks are available with signs that spell out the hazard for the worker. When the lock is on, a red stop sign can be affixed with warn- ing messages (such as "Stop: Live Equipment"), SDS information, com- modity information or any wording the company desires. CHANGE NEEDED As it stands now, when a pipeline maintenance worker is working on a line, he needs to insert a blind to block off the flow of substances and isolate the section of the pipe to be worked on. To ensure blinds are not prematurely removed, workers are required to use a tagout system. However, there are issues with tagout procedures. For starters, the tag can fall off or deteriorate. "Some of the things I have heard and seen personally is in some of these environments, that could be outdoors in very harsh environments, how does the tag hold up? Can it stay on? It could be on a zip tie or wired to a bolt but does it remain in that location?" says John Teece, senior product manager for safety products at Master Lock in Oak Creek, Wis., which manufactures a blind flange lockout device. The physical presence of the locks offers better communication than tagout, says Teece. For example, a tag that says "Do not remove" or "Locked out" does not offer any information about how many workers are working on the line. "There might be 15 people down- stream working on this. And then two hours later, 13, and going into second shift, it's six. That tag doesn't communicate that, where a pad- lock communicates there's a person downstream who basically is person- ally signifying they're engaged in the lockout," Teece says. "The padlock not only provides the security there but it provides a viable means for communicating that." Having a physical lock also helps prevent shortcuts, says Patrick Smyth, vice-president of safety and engineer- ing at the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association in Calgary. "If someone comes in and they say 'Oh it's only a real quick job that I have to do,' perhaps they will bypass the procedure and not tag it out. It's the shortcuts that get you into trou- ble," he says. Smyth was excited when he came across the Intego Flange Lock because it provides an extra layer of control. Instead of relying on the administra- tive control of tagout, it goes one step up the hierarchy to providing an engi- neering control. "This takes away the guessing. Has everyone put a tag on there? Has every- one removed their tag? And, if it's locked out like this and everyone asso- ciated with any work puts their lock on it as well, then there is no ambiguity. Once all those locks are removed then you know the individual the lock is assigned to has completed their work and essentially cleared the location," says Smyth. "I would see this lockout mechanism as more of a fail safe… From the perspective of a safety guy, this is awesome." But whether it's a tagout or a lock- out, human factors still play a role. When Smyth was working in pulp mills years ago, he recalls one evening when his colleague got a knock on his hotel door at 3 a.m. His tag was still on the pressure vessel but the guys were ready to close it up. "Any time you're relying on indi- viduals to do something, especially if they're working 12-hour days, seven days a week, the human factor com- ponent plays into this. They could have all the training that is necessary; they could understand the procedure and if something just goes a little awry and, say, they are tired at the end of the day, then they walk away and they forgot to take their tag or lock off," he says. "There is a degree of uncertainly that resides with whoever is managing the project." While legislation and codes require every facility to have systems in place to control hazardous energy, they do not specify what that system needs to look like, so they vary widely. Some will put a paper tag on flanges to be worked on, while others will do bar- rier tagging, which places tags on the isolation valves and allows work on all flanges within that system, says Parrott. This poses a problem for mainte- nance workers as they go from plant to plant. "Maintenance people are a lot more transient these days. They used to work on the same equipment all the time and they got used to it. They knew what was happening and it was very predictable, but now, they are moving around a lot more, so they are working on different equipment all the time," says Parrott. A ll these different variables inspired Parrott and his colleagues to invent the flange lock. When the elec- trical lock came in, it didn't matter what system was in place; if the lock was on the breaker, the worker didn't touch it, Parrott says. That same logic applies to the flange lock. "If we get them to use things like physical barriers, like the electri- cians with their locks, and give them some skills to be able to read differ- ent systems and know what's going on and how to protect themselves, we can make them safer no matter what they're working on or where they're working," says Parrott. One benefit of the current tagout system is that there are multiple people involved — the foreman, operator, planner — and they are supposed to be providing checks and re-checks to make sure the work is being done safely and correctly. Unfortunately, this is also a limita- tion, says Parrott. "It's kind of like that kids' game, Telephone. You pass along informa- tion, pass along the information and it can get distorted, so you end up having multiple people involved and just rely- ing on communication from multiple people is a limitation because you can Brady understands that sometimes you need a sign, tag or banner that is unique to your own facility. With Brady's wide variety of custom order options, we have the ability to create a sign with exactly the message you need, in the material and size you want. Create your own Custom Signs, Tags & Banners "Now Made in Canada" by Brady! BradyCanada.ca Customize Your Safety Needs. • Custom text • Custom graphics • Common sizes • Variety of materials

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