STOPOUT® Line of Products

Procedures, devices, and personnel must be set in place to prevent serious injury or death that could occur when someone thinks something is safely off. To ensure machines and equipment remain inoperable means establishing a "program consisting of energy control procedures, employee training, and periodic inspections..." as described in the OSHA standard. The standard also identifies products used for achieving these goals, such as lockout and tagout devices.

Since the inception of the OSHA enforcement program in 1971, the agency, for the most part, had to rely on the use of the “General Duty Clause” (section 5[a][1] of the Occupational Safety and Health Act) citation to ensure that employers protected their workers. OSHA conceded that this approach met with only limited success because compliance officers had to prove that the hazard was a “recognized” hazard and that it was causing or could cause death or serious physical harm.