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Case study: Workplace safety

Workplace safety is of major importance to many businesses. Sending all employees home at the end of every shift is perhaps the most humane and effcient action any employer can take to really value their people and the work they do.

One of the solutions the large chocolate producer uses to achieve high workplace safety, is Lockout/Tagout. This procedure enables workers to prevent accidents with moving machine parts by neutralising a machine’s energy supply.

The chocolate producer already had the Lockout/Tagout padlocks, devices and procedures to enable safe machine interventions. The company now wanted to go one step further: how to make sure the padlocks and devices are optimally used in the workplace?

Solution: Make Lockout/Tagout available where it matters

Brady presented highly customisable shadowboards to keep Lockout/Tagout highly visible in the workplace. These large boards, that can span one or several panels, include ‘shadows’ of every Lockout/Tagout padlock, device and accessory used in a specifc workplace area. All corresponding Lockout/Tagout tools are added to the board. Shadowboards make it very easy and effcient for employees to retrieve the tools they need, and to bring them back after servicing a machine.

5 shadowboards were requested, 4 for specifc factory areas, and 1 more as a central maintenance board. Brady frst delivered drawings to enable customer feedback, approval and sign-off. Boards had to include shadows for padlocks in various colour codes, for lockout devices to block gate wheel valves, ball valves, butterfy valves, circuit breakers, and industrial plugs, and for accessories including lockboxes and hasps. Holders to include several Lockout Tags were also included.

Each shadowboard is 1.4 metres high and 2.7 metres wide, and consists of 90 cm wide panels. The board has rounded corners, and was made out of 8 mm thick white plexiglass.

Result: Quickly and easily use Lockout/Tagout

The large chocolate producer’s employees now always have Lockout/Tagout solutions within reach to protect themselves during machine interventions. The Lockout/Tagout padlocks, decives and accessories, as well as the tags, are presented on large, highly visible shadowboards on 5 locations in the factory. Other chocolate production sites are looking into implementing Lockout/Tagout-shadowboards in their factories as well.