10.3 – Lock Purpose & Colours

Your company may have a specific colour code with meanings for different types of locks.

For the purpose of this course, we’ll define the following key persons and their corresponding lock colours as follows:

RED = Your Personal Lock

BLUE = Group or Company Lock
GREEN = Supervisor Lock (or security lock)
YELLOW = Complex Lockout Control Lock

PURPLE = Subtrades lock colour.

It is not common for subtrades that might be working for your company to come with the correct colour of lock. It is also NOT possible to get locks which come in multi-colours, but sometimes a lock needs to identify several different things.

For example, a lock may need to identify a subtrade supervisor, yet they may have come with a red lock for this purpose. Having a collection of multi-colour electrical tape is an inexpensive and fast way to correct the issue.

If the subtrade supervisor had a RED lock with them, you can band the lock with GREEN and PURPLE electrical tape to signify this is the supervisor of the subtrade.

Or if this is a worker for a subtrade signing in your lockout, and they already have a red lock indicating their PERSONAL lock, you simply need to add a PURPLE band to the already red lock.