Lockout Tagout (LOTO) Training

Who is this training for?

It is for maintenance staff, operators and anyone who services or works on machinery in a New Zealand workplace, and for the supervisors responsible for safe isolation.

Because it is built per site from your own machinery and SOPs, your team trains on the real isolation points and procedures they use every day.

Built around your plant

Because it is bespoke, the content maps to your machinery and procedures.

There is no approved code of practice for lockout in New Zealand

WorkSafe publishes guidance called Keeping workers safe with machine lockouts, and it is careful about its own status. It is guidance, not an approved code of practice, and WorkSafe says on the page that it provides general advice and that it is not possible for WorkSafe to address every situation.

That is not a loophole. It is the opposite. Where an approved code exists you can follow it and point to it. Where there is only guidance, the duty falls back on the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 and on what is reasonably practicable for your plant, your energy sources and your people. You have to do the thinking, and you have to be able to show that you did it.

What WorkSafe actually expects

The guidance sets out a lockout procedure in eight steps: identify the machinery and the energy types, assess the risks, notify affected workers, shut the machinery down, identify and de-energise the lockout points, attach locks, tag out, and then test that the lockout worked.

Three parts of that are where sites most often come unstuck.

Every worker fits their own lock

WorkSafe says each worker should attach their personal lock to the lockout point for each energy source. Where several people are working off one isolation point, they use a multi-lock device, a hasp, so that every person has their own lock on it.

One supervisor's lock covering a crew of four is not the same control. The whole point of a personal lock is that the machine cannot be restarted while the person still inside it is holding the only key. Hand that key to someone else and the control is gone.

A tag is a warning, not an isolation

WorkSafe's wording is unambiguous. Once machinery is locked out, it should then be tagged out, and the tag warns other workers that it is locked out. The tag communicates. The lock isolates.

Tag-only isolation relies on every person on site reading a piece of plastic and choosing to obey it, including the person who arrives on night shift, does not know you, and needs the machine running. Lockout does not rely on that.

Stored energy will still hurt you

Killing the power at the switchboard does not empty a hydraulic ram, release a compressed spring or vent a line of compressed air. WorkSafe specifically names compressed air, fluids or gases under pressure, and stored energy such as compressed springs or hydraulic rams.

This is exactly why the last step in the sequence is to test, and not to assume. The isolation you have not verified is a belief, not a control.

When it applies is broader than people think

Lockout applies before machinery is serviced, and WorkSafe defines servicing to include maintenance, repairing, cleaning, unjamming and unblocking.

Unjamming is the one that catches people. Clearing a blockage feels like a thirty-second job, the machine is right there, the guard is already off, and the line is stopped anyway. That is the precise set of circumstances in which hands go into machines that are still live.

The training duty is explicit

WorkSafe does not leave this to inference. You must make sure your workers are trained in the procedure, or are supervised when they carry it out. Trained or supervised. There is no third option in which someone works it out from first principles on a Saturday callout.

WorkSafe also says it is good practice to write your lockout procedure down. That is good practice rather than a legal requirement, but think about what an undocumented procedure looks like after an incident. If the procedure existed only in the head of the person who was injured, you cannot show anyone what your workers were trained to do.

Where training sits

Design and guarding do more than any course can. WorkSafe puts it directly: guarding is an important control in isolating a hazard, but it should always be secondary to eliminating the hazard. If a machine has to be entered every week to clear the same blockage, the real fix sits upstream of your lockout procedure, in the design, the guarding or the material feed. Say so out loud rather than training around it.

Training earns its place in the layer that remains after that. Someone still has to recognise every energy source on a machine they did not design, resist the pressure to clear a jam quickly mid-run, verify zero energy rather than assume it, and refuse to work under somebody else's lock.

Sources: WorkSafe New Zealand, Keeping workers safe with machine lockouts and Safe use of machinery. Health and Safety at Work Act 2015. WorkSafe guidance is general advice, not an approved code of practice, and does not replace a risk assessment of your own plant.

Common questions

Why is this built per site?

Every plant and machine isolates energy differently. Training on your own machinery and isolation points means the procedure your team learns is the one they will actually use.

Who should attend?

Maintenance staff, operators and anyone who services machinery, plus the supervisors responsible for safe isolation.

What does it cover?

Why lockout tagout matters, your isolation points, applying locks and tags in the right order, verifying zero energy, and safely returning machines to service.

How do we get started?

Contact us and we will scope the training around your machinery and standard operating procedures.

Is lockout tagout legally required in New Zealand?

There is no approved code of practice for machine lockout in New Zealand. WorkSafe's lockout material is guidance, and it says so on the page. The duty comes from the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 instead: you must eliminate or minimise the risk so far as is reasonably practicable. WorkSafe's guidance states that a PCBU must have a safe and effective lockout procedure and must make sure workers are trained in it or supervised while carrying it out. The absence of a code makes your own risk assessment more important, not less.

Can we use tags instead of locks?

A tag warns, it does not isolate. WorkSafe's sequence is to lock out first and then tag out, so the tag tells other workers that the machine is locked. Tag-only control depends on every person reading the tag and choosing to comply, including people who did not attach it and need the machine running. Where a lock can reasonably be fitted, a tag on its own is difficult to defend as the control.

Does every worker need their own lock?

WorkSafe says each worker should attach their personal lock to the lockout point for each energy source, and where several people work off a single point they should use a multi-lock device, or hasp, so everyone's lock is on it. One lock held by a supervisor on behalf of a crew is not equivalent, because the machine can be re-energised while someone is still inside it.