What Are the Colors of Lockout Padlocks?

Lockout/Tagout (LOTO) padlocks and labels provide an efficient way to identify equipment, areas, and padlocks with critical lockout/tagout information. These high-performance, self-adhesive labels are designed to endure tough environmental conditions.

Safety padlocks are the heart of Lockout-Tagout. They come in many shapes, sizes and colours. But why do we use different coloured safety padlocks?

 Safety Padlock

Why do we need Lockout-Tagout safety padlocks? 

Lockout-Tagout prevents industrial accidents by temporarily disconnecting machines from the power supply. This technology and the associated instrumentation ensure that the machine does not stop or start suddenly during operation.

When carrying out maintenance, Lockout-Tagout successfully prevents accidents caused by moving parts and machine energy. In addition, workplace visibility helps foster a strong safety culture so that every employee can go home safely every day.

According to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), employees must be able to identify and differentiate locking equipment from other similar equipment in the workplace (e.g., security locks) based on the shape, size and colour of the lock OSHA does not mandate the use of specific colours for specific practices, but does provide recommendations.

OSHA recommends the following:

Red: means ‘DANGER’

Yellow: ‘Caution’

Orange: ‘Warning’

Fluorescent Orange: ‘Biohazard’

Another colour code suggestion comes from our partner Brady, whose suggestions for different colours are more employee based.

They suggested the following:

Red: for machine maintenance

Blue: for contractors

Yellow: for electrical

Orange: for outside employees

Brady also said that the nine colours in its product line would meet the different needs of different companies.

Their recommendation is as follows:

Red: represents authorised workers

Yellow: represents affected workers

Orange: represents contractors who are affected workers

Purple: authorised workers would put the lock on when the lock crosses the shift and then they would remove the red locks。

In summary, there are no standard rules for the colour of Lockout-Tagout locks. Any Lockout-Tagout security program can specify its own colour coding for Lockout-Tagout padlocks. Therefore, colours may have different connotations depending on the business.

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