The American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) recently announced that the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) approved the reaffirmation of the American National Standard ANSI Z244.1-2003 (R2008) Control of Hazardous Energy — Lockout/Tagout and Alternative Methods, which aims to protect workers from hazardous energy associated with machines, equipment or processes that could cause injury.

The standard establishes requirements and performance objectives for procedures, techniques, designs and methods that protect workers where injury can occur due to unexpected releases of hazardous energy. An unexpected release of hazardous energy includes any unintended motion, start-up or release of stored energy, deliberate or otherwise, from the perspective of the person at risk.