First, the questions
Is it a machine?
Is your employee inside the machine, or placing their body or body part with or without a fork lift inside the machine?
Does your company policy mandate locking out a machine if an employee must place their body in harms way near a machine?
Why it matters
If you answered yes to these questions, then we can almost guarantee you have a lock out procedure in place for this machine, truck, trailer, or whatever piece of important equipment your employee is working on. If this is the case, then that piece of equipment should always be locked out, 100% of the time, no excuses.
Now, you may be saying, "well we have wheel chocks in place", or "we have trailer restraints", or "we have trailer jacks", come on that's enough right?
The simple answer is, no. While all those are excellent practices, none of them are lock out procedures. Lock out procedures are the safest, most effective way to ensure that your employees are working in an environment that allows for maximum safety, and minimal chance for injury. Only the Glad Hand Lock is a true machine lock out, locking out the trailer braking system making it extremely difficult for:
- Trailer creep
- Inadvertent movement by fork lift in or out
- Un-announced movement by tractor pulling away
So, why aren't Glad Hand Locks used 100% of the time when work is being performed on tractor trailers?
The results
Based on our studies, we found that the number one reason for lock out failure on spotted trailers and/or tractor trailers was simply the inability to quickly find an available Glad Hand Lock.
While the device is simple to use, the lack of storage procedures meant that Glad Hand Locks were scattered throughout the facility, left in drawers, bins, on shelves, or in some other location that wasn't readily accessible when lock out was required. This wasn't some character failure of employees, it was process failure, and a lack of secure and traceable storage.
Our conclusion was that the simplest and most effective was to ensure that lock out procedures were being followed was to ensure that the Glad Hand Lock was readily available, and that storage could be tracked and traced for visibility.
These results are why GladHanger created the GladHanger for use on shipping and receiving loading docks worldwide.. The GladHanger is a device designed specifically to store Glad Hand Locks securely and within arms reach when lock out is required. During testing, we noted that Glad Hand Lock use rate was as high as 100% when using the GladHanger. When compared to previously unknown and undocumented usage, usage rates were up over 50%.
Following lock out procedures leads to higher levels of safety, less damage to equipment, and most importantly, less injury. GladHanger LLC is comprised of over 75 combined years of maintenance, production, and logistics experience, and to us, the single most important element of any work environment has always been the safety of our employees. Following lock out procedures is vital to that safety, and ensuring the greatest ease in following those procedures is an important step in safety procedure compliance.