Recognize protected equipment and stay within your role
Learning objective: Explain the basic procedure and the prohibition on restarting protected equipment.
You may work in a facility area where energy-control procedures can be used without operating the protected equipment or being assigned work in an active servicing area. Your actions can still affect another crew’s protection. This instruction applies to other employees whose work operations are or may be in areas where energy-control procedures are used.
Lockout/tagout is an established procedure to prevent unexpected energization, startup or hazardous stored-energy release during covered servicing. Authorized employees apply the controls. Affected employees operate or use the equipment being serviced or have jobs requiring work in the servicing area. If your duties meet that description, you need affected-employee instruction rather than this awareness track alone. The employer determines the role from actual duties.
Do not attempt to start, restart or reenergize locked or tagged equipment. Do not operate controls, remove devices or bypass the procedure. A request from a coworker to “just try it” does not change this boundary.
Keep clear of the servicing area and follow the site’s access arrangements. A stopped machine can still contain pressure, gravity, heat or other hazardous energy. This course does not authorize you to enter the hazard area, evaluate isolation or perform servicing.
Source context: 1910.147(c)(7)(i)(C); (b)