# heads will roll



## chicken steve (Mar 22, 2011)

> If I had to guess, an interlock was bypassed


a polite way of saying someone took the loto off?

~CS~


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## McClary’s Electrical (Feb 21, 2009)

sparky970 said:


> Yesterday there was a shutdown on one of the paper machines where we work. Our mechanical side was working in a couple of the dryer sections, when an adjacent dryer section started up at full speed. Luckily, no one was injured. Our guys were locked our properly, but somewhere someone f'd up. If I had to guess, an interlock was bypassed. Incident investigation was today. Hope to hear the story tomorrow. This could have easily killed a lot of people. If I had been working in that area, I would have packed it in for the day.


We've done work in corrugating factories, and the LOTO procedure required locking out the machine you were working on, and also the machines in front of and behind it, to prevent this type of thing. If they were in close enough proximity that someone could have been killed, you have no business relying on an interlock to hold the machine out.


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## hardworkingstiff (Jan 22, 2007)

Is there not a local disconnect?


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## sparky970 (Mar 19, 2008)

chicken steve said:


> a polite way of saying someone took the loto off?
> 
> ~CS~


The same Group LO/TO that's been used 100 times was in place. 50-100 people would have to remove their locks to clear the LO/TO.


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## Big John (May 23, 2010)

Hate to say it, but the simple answer is if the lockout policy was properly enforced, but still allowed men to be put in a situation where they could be injured or killed, that lockout policy is a failure.

It's not necessarily the fault of the man that pushed the button or defeated the interlock, but it's definitely the fault of the man who said "everyone will be fine just as long as nobody pushes this button or defeats this interlock."

-John


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## eric7379 (Jan 5, 2010)

sparky970 said:


> Yesterday there was a shutdown on one of the paper machines where we work. Our mechanical side was working in a couple of the dryer sections, when an adjacent dryer section started up at full speed. Luckily, no one was injured. Our guys were locked our properly, but somewhere someone f'd up. If I had to guess, an interlock was bypassed. Incident investigation was today. Hope to hear the story tomorrow. This could have easily killed a lot of people. If I had been working in that area, I would have packed it in for the day.


What kind of paper machine was this? Was this at a paper mill? It sounds as though even though the LOTO policy was followed, the policy was not good enough in this case. Was everything that affected this machine locked out (air, electric, gas, etc.)?

Obviously something was wrong with the LOTO plicy in this case. If a machine is properly locked out, it should NEVER start. You mentioned that an interlock might have been bypassed. If the crew was relying on an interlock as a means of LOTO to keep the machine from starting, then it was not a true LOTO.


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## frenchelectrican (Mar 15, 2007)

I just got done with hydrauallic press { 2500 tonne class so that is big sonvagunner } have muli LOTO's there the items I put all the locks on 

• Electrique disconnect switch 
• Air shut off valve and complety release any resdual pressure in there
• Shut off the accoumaotor or bleed it out manually { act like hydrallic booster } 
• Put combation wood block ( oak ) / Steel I beam to prevent the plate to move 

The whole LOTO take about a hour do it complety safe then I go up and replace the motour et pump controls { 12 meter up in the air } 

Block any forklift traffic and put a warning signs say worker above.

I am not only one use the LOTO there were 18 other staff that have to use the LOTO as well on that unit.

The reason why that compaine called me in due I have experince with 4400 volt { this is not a misprint } system 

Merci,
Marc


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## chicken steve (Mar 22, 2011)

so the moral of the thread is, there's a lot more to working safely than just lock out tag out......~CS~


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## BBQ (Nov 16, 2010)

chicken steve said:


> so the moral of the thread is, there's a lot more to working safely than just lock out tag out......~CS~


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## chicken steve (Mar 22, 2011)




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## BBQ (Nov 16, 2010)

LMAO.


Have a great weekend CS.


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## chicken steve (Mar 22, 2011)

BBQ said:


> LMAO.
> 
> 
> Have a great weekend CS.


_back at ya_ BBQ........


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## nhanson (Apr 17, 2010)

thats no good. Keep us updated


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## jza (Oct 31, 2009)

frenchelectrican said:


> I have experince with 4400 volt { this is not a misprint } system


Okay?


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## RIVETER (Sep 26, 2009)

sparky970 said:


> Yesterday there was a shutdown on one of the paper machines where we work. Our mechanical side was working in a couple of the dryer sections, when an adjacent dryer section started up at full speed. Luckily, no one was injured. Our guys were locked our properly, but somewhere someone f'd up. If I had to guess, an interlock was bypassed. Incident investigation was today. Hope to hear the story tomorrow. This could have easily killed a lot of people. If I had been working in that area, I would have packed it in for the day.


If you locked out the equipment you intended to work on but did not lock out additional equipment in the area that you were exposed to, you were not properly locked out.


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## frenchelectrican (Mar 15, 2007)

jza said:


> Okay?


 
Yeah I am ok on that one however the mantanaice guys they know squat about the Med voltage system. they almost blew themself up when they did try to do the troubleshooting it. ( I know they did broke few safety rules with this )

Merci,
Marc


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## jza (Oct 31, 2009)

frenchelectrican said:


> Yeah I am ok on that one however the mantanaice guys they know squat about the Med voltage system. they almost blew themself up when they did try to do the troubleshooting it. ( I know they did broke few safety rules with this )
> 
> Merci,
> Marc


J'pense pas que tu m'as compris.


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## sparky970 (Mar 19, 2008)

So a little more on the story. The section that started at full speed was not part of the group/multiple LO/TO. This is the norm due to the fact they were changing felts. A few things occurred. The first was new tachs were put on some of the drive motors and wired incorrectly, not by anyone from our company. The second, they were to jog the system to get the new felts installed, but did not test the new tachs prior to jogging the system. Also, they did not warn any of the workers in the area of what was happening. Since the tachs were wired wrong, they were sending a negative reference input signal, so it tried to speed up. Seems to me, if the drive or I/A sees a negative input, it should have went into a fault and not allowed this to happen, the customer agreed. They are continuing with the incident investigation and will takes steps to make sure something like this won't happen again.


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## sparky970 (Mar 19, 2008)

RIVETER said:


> If you locked out the equipment you intended to work on but did not lock out additional equipment in the area that you were exposed to, you were not properly locked out.


This is not practical in many cases.


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## chicken steve (Mar 22, 2011)

interesting series of events Sparky.....~CS~


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## sparky970 (Mar 19, 2008)

chicken steve said:


> interesting series of events Sparky.....~CS~


Indeed!!


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## McClary’s Electrical (Feb 21, 2009)

sparky970 said:


> This is not practical in many cases.


If the machine that started posed a threat to you, it is just as practical as loto on the machine you are touching.


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## sparky970 (Mar 19, 2008)

mcclary's electrical said:


> If the machine that started posed a threat to you, it is just as practical as loto on the machine you are touching.


I don't work in the dryer sections of the machines, but my assumption would have been that the section that started would have been included in the group lock out. It should have been. I wouldn't trust an operator or engineer not to push a button.


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## eric7379 (Jan 5, 2010)

sparky970 said:


> So a little more on the story. The section that started at full speed was not part of the group/multiple LO/TO. This is the norm due to the fact they were changing felts. A few things occurred. The first was new tachs were put on some of the drive motors and wired incorrectly, not by anyone from our company. The second, they were to jog the system to get the new felts installed, but did not test the new tachs prior to jogging the system. Also, they did not warn any of the workers in the area of what was happening. Since the tachs were wired wrong, they were sending a negative reference input signal, so it tried to speed up. Seems to me, if the drive or I/A sees a negative input, it should have went into a fault and not allowed this to happen, the customer agreed. They are continuing with the incident investigation and will takes steps to make sure something like this won't happen again.


This is a common problem with some drives, particularly with tach feedback. We have many DC drives at the facility that I work at and some of them are still using tach feedback. We built in a "tach loss" fault circuit into the PLC control scheme for the press so if either the tach is wired wrong or decides to fail, then as soon as the press starts to accelerate uncontrollably, it will fault out on "tach loss". 

I still maintain the position that if the machine that started up even remotely posed a danger to you or your crew, then it should have been locked out as well. In cases where I am working on a particular machine that has several different independent machines with many different lockout points, I lock out the main disconnect for ALL of them, just to to be sure.


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## eric7379 (Jan 5, 2010)

sparky970 said:


> I don't work in the dryer sections of the machines, but my *assumption* would have been that the section that started would have been included in the group lock out. It should have been. I wouldn't trust an operator or engineer not to push a button.


 
We all know what happens when we ASSume. I'm not trying to be ignorant about it, but one should never, ever assume when it comes to LOTO. When it comes to LOTO, the only person that you can trust is yourself. If you don't lock something off and you get hurt, then it is your fault.


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## sparky970 (Mar 19, 2008)

eric7379 said:


> We all know what happens when we ASSume. I'm not trying to be ignorant about it, but one should never, ever assume when it comes to LOTO. When it comes to LOTO, the only person that you can trust is yourself. If you don't lock something off and you get hurt, then it is your fault.



Like I said, my crew and I were not even remotely involved in this work, this was work performed by our fitters and millwrights. I didn't hang any locks or even see the lock out board. As a person on the outside, I would have thought the lock out included the adjacent sections. The response I got when I asked the engineers yesterday was, " I can guarantee, that's how we have always done it" He knew this wasn't the right answer, but it is what he was told. There will be some new policies, to prevent this from happening again.


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