Platform for the food and beverage industry
The use of chemicals at various stages of processing as well as additives in both food and beverages has increased significantly in recent decades, necessitating changes in maintenance interventions.
In addition, the mechanization and robotization greatly increased, which has led to an increasing number of large automated machines that have a lot of moving parts.
Maintenance and cleaning work requires the removal of contents from pipes and the neutralization of moving machine parts to avoid exposing workers to hazardous substances or getting caught in the powerful machinery. Machinery is equipped with necessary safety devices whenever possible, but a lot of machinery used in this industry often includes dangerous moving parts for which appropriate safety devices are not readily available.
To still be able to work in complete safety, it is especially necessary to first turn off the power before touching even the smallest moving part of any machine. Furthermore, operators are also advised to call on appropriately qualified technicians for technical problems and not to try to solve the problem themselves.
Given the variety of machines and pipelines that require regular maintenance, beverage producers must have multiple specialized teams and external partners equipped with the right tools to safely maintain the machinery.
To increase safety during maintenance work, a large multi-site brewery is looking for a solution for neutralizing machines and securing power sources and line valves in the off position. The client wants this solution to be implemented across all sites for a large number of teams, including specialized employees and external partners.
Brady suggests a Lockout/Tagout total solution for, with the main element being unique and innovative SafeKey padlocks that offer up to 700% more lock-and-key combinations than traditional security locks.
SafeKey padlocks include a unique and innovative locking mechanism that provides more than 100,000 lock-and-key combinations. With SafeKey, larger ranges of unique lock-and-key combinations can be created, with tokens for more team leaders and one central token for the company's security manager that can be used to open all lock-and-key combinations.
The golden rule in Lockout/Tagout, the proven safety procedure for all machine and maintenance interventions, states that the skilled person performing the work does not remove the lock until the intervention is complete. This avoids premature reactivation of power sources and line valves, which can lead to serious injury. Only team leaders and a selected number of supervisors are authorized to revoke such decisions after extensive testing as outlined in the company's safety procedures.
Brady can provide Keyed Alike padlocks to any employee requiring them. These padlocks cannot be opened by any colleague in the company except the team leader with his runner, or the company's security manager with the central runner. The large number of lock-and-key combinations allows us to equip dozens of teams with Keyed Different SafeKey padlocks that can be opened with their respective team leader's runner.
Brady's Lockout/Tagout experts can help create a comprehensive key plan that includes all key and lock codes. This ensures that no two locks are ever identical, even after ordering additional SafeKey padlocks.
Furthermore, Brady can also be LINK360-security software in which relevant stakeholders at all sites can write, edit, approve, print or digitally access machine-specific Lockout/Tagout procedures.
When specialized teams perform an intervention on a machine, team members are now in control of their own safety. They can apply a specific locking system and lock it with their personal padlock to secure a power source or keep a pipe locked. Furthermore, they can also add their padlock to an existing locking system if another team is already active in the zone. This way, they then know that only they, their manager or company safety manager can remove their lock to reopen a pipe or reactivate a machine.
