Electrical
Guarded machinery
A guarded machinery is equipment in the electrical category. Machinery requiring energy isolation during service, tagged at each isolation point.
Also called: press, conveyor, industrial machine, machine guarding.
Governing standards
OSHA 1910.147
Control of Hazardous Energy (Lockout/Tagout)
Energy isolation procedures and the durable tags applied during lockout.
Issued by Occupational Safety and Health Administration
ANSI Z535.4
Product Safety Signs and Labels
Signal words, colour, and format for hazard labels applied to equipment.
Issued by American National Standards Institute
Required artifacts
| Artifact | What it does |
|---|---|
| Inspection tag | An inspection tag is a compliance consumable affixed to equipment that records who serviced it, when, and under what licence. |
| Service label | A service label is a compliance consumable applied directly to equipment recording a test, a certification, or a next-due date. |
Which of these you actually need, and on what cycle, depends on your jurisdiction. We publish that only where we have read the governing clause and can cite it. Where we have not, the page says so rather than guessing.
In stock for guarded machinery
What it is
Fixed and interlocked guarding around moving parts - fences, gates, light curtains and the interlocks that stop the machine when they open. Also the isolation points used to lock a machine out for maintenance.
Why it gets inspected
Guards get defeated by the people who use them. An interlock taped closed to speed up a changeover stays taped, and the machine has been running unguarded for months by the time anyone with a clipboard walks past.
What happens on a visit
Open every guard and confirm the machine actually stops, test light curtains by interruption, look for defeated or bypassed interlocks, and verify the isolation points can be locked and are labelled for what they isolate.
What drives the tag count
Lockout tags are consumed per energy isolation event rather than per machine or per person. A single maintenance job may apply a dozen across several isolation points, so volume tracks maintenance activity and shutdown schedules rather than headcount.
What actually gets tagged, and where it goes
Guarded machinery carries safety labelling to a defined format, plus lockout identification at the energy isolation points. The labelling communicates a hazard to whoever approaches, so signal word, colour and legibility are the specification, and a faded label has stopped conforming regardless of what it originally said. Lockout devices at the isolation points are a separate item with a mechanical requirement: substantial enough not to be removed accidentally.
What a scan of guarded machinery shows
Machinery is modified, and the modification is what makes the labelling wrong. A guard removed and replaced, an energy source added, a machine repurposed onto a different line, and the written energy control procedure now describes a machine that no longer exists. A scan resolves to the machine and shows when its labelling was applied and when its procedure was last reviewed against it, which is the only thing that surfaces procedure drift before an incident does.
Every artifact here is serialised, so the record survives the tag being replaced. The mechanics are on how inspection records work.
Sizing an order for a fleet of guarded machinery
Count machines, then count isolation points per machine, since the second number drives the lockout order and is usually several times the first. Safety labelling is ordered per machine against the hazard assessment. Where a hazard assessment changes, serialised labels let you identify precisely which machines carry the superseded version instead of walking the floor.
Minimum is 100 units and every price is on the page, so a first order can be a test rather than a commitment. Why the minimum is 100, not 2,500.
Inspected on the same visit
Guarded machinery sits inside a wider energy control programme that also covers electrical panels, and on the same floor as the forklifts moving material to and from it. Where the process involves corrosives, eyewash stations are part of the same walk. The number that drives a machinery order is isolation points rather than machines, and because the same programme covers panels, counting isolation points across both at once is more accurate than counting them per equipment type.
Ordering guarded machinery: common questions
What drives the lockout order quantity?
Isolation points, not machines. A single machine frequently has several energy sources, so the isolation point count is usually a multiple of the machine count and it is the number that actually determines what you need. Counting machines alone routinely under-orders.
Do you choose the signal word?
No. Selecting DANGER, WARNING or CAUTION follows from the severity of the hazard, which is a determination for whoever performed the hazard assessment. We produce the label to the correct format with the content you specify.
What happens when a machine is modified?
This is the failure worth designing for. A guard replaced or an energy source added means the written procedure now describes a machine that no longer exists. The record shows when the labelling was applied and when the procedure was last reviewed against the machine, which is what surfaces that drift before an incident does.