This is one of the FAQs from our Electrical Safety Panel Discussion with John Kolak MS CSP, Charles Miller NEC Expert, & Bhanu Srilla CESP CMRP.
John Kolak: Well, there are essentially two requirements. Some of them come from OSHA, some come from NFPA 70E. There's also a, what OSHA would call, "regular supervision". That's all part of the process, but the auditing process exists on two levels. There's a three-year review process of the 70E requirement, but there's also an annual requirement under OSHA for auditing the program. And what we're auditing the program for is the effectiveness. That's the key part of what we're trying to accomplish. It's not good enough to have a state of the art program. It's also got to be effectively implemented and so there's an annual audit requirement under OSHA for that.
Then there's the NFPA 70E requirement, which has a three or cyclical requirement for reviewing the document itself. And OSHA has what they call regular supervision, and this means that OSHA expects a supervisor to observe the work on a daily basis. They're supposed to see their supervisor observe the work on a daily basis. And what the supervisor is looking for is not only to correct unsafe behavior or to congratulate good behavior but also to verify if the system is effectively doing whatever it's trying to do. So for example, energy control, lockout tag out, you have to have a process to verify that the process is effectively controlling on unexpected releases of energy. So it exists on different levels, the OSHA as well as the 70E.
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