Last Updated on October 29, 2023 by maximosecrets

The safety module in Maximo is found as part of the Planning module and consists of four applications, Hazards, Precautions, Lock Out / Tag Out, and Safety Plans. The records from these applications are used in Locations, Assets, Job Plans and Work Order Tracking. A hazard can also be referenced in the Item Master application and Item/Organization Details action, this would normally be used to reference items that have a hazardous material.

This overview will provide a summary of how safety is pulled together onto a safety plan and used on a work order. A deep dive will be found in five other articles:

• Hazards and Precautions
• Lock Out / Tag Out
• Applying Safety Plans
• Building Safety Plans
• Hazards on Item Master

Later in this overview I will provide an entity diagram so that you can see how the data comes together both on the safety plan and then on the work order.

Hazards and Precautions

The Hazards application is where you define hazards and the precautions needed to mitigate the hazard. There is a separate application for defining the library of Precautions that are used across one or more hazards. For example, Gloves, Goggles and other PPE, or various types of permits can be setup as Precaution records.

A hazard can be marked as a hazardous material, in addition to the precautions taken. The Hazardous Material Information section has fields for Health Risk, Flammability, Reactivity ratings which are normally a value in range 0 to 4. There is also a field for Contact Rating and a reference to the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS), this information might also be referenced as a linked document to provide easy access.

A hazard can also be associated with a lock out and tag out (LOTO) procedure defined in the Lock Out / Tag Out application. These procedures are used for isolating assets or locationsA physical place where assets exist and where work can be performed. More, to close/open valves or breakers, etc. Procedural steps are applied in a specific sequence, the Remove Sequence is used for the steps in the de-isolation procedure. 

If a hazard is associated with lock out and tag out procedures it cannot also have precautions, the LOTO procedures are mitigating the risks of the hazard.

Lock Out / Tag Out

The Lock Out / Tag Out application is used for creating isolation procedures of assets (or locations). An asset/location can have multiple Tag Out sequences. For example, an electric motor for a pump can have a tag out procedure used to stop the flow to the pump and another tag out procedure used to electrically isolate the motor.

The procedure steps can either reference an asset/location or it can be a descriptive step. These steps must be applied in a specific sequence to achieve the required isolation state, the Apply Sequence field is used for this. Some of the same steps will be used in a reverse sequence in order to return the asset to service, the de-isolation process, this sequence is defined in the Remove Sequence field.

The Tag Out record is associated with a Hazard. The Lock Out records are the procedural steps of the Tag Out. You lock out devices in order to then be able to tag out an asset to indicate that it has been isolated and is safe to work on.

Applying Safety Plans

A safety plan contains the hazards and precautions, hazardous materials, or lock out / tag out procedures needed to perform a specific type of job on a location or asset. A safety plan can be applied to a work order and then the safety information can be modified, if necessary. You can build the safety information for a work order manually, in the Safety Plan tab of the Work Order Tracking application.

In the article on applying safety plans I look at the standard safety plans found in the MAXDEMO database and demonstrate how they are applied either directly to a work order, or via a Job Plan. In the article on building safety plans I used the New Safety Plan button and show how the safety plan data is built from a similar set of records found in the Safety tab of the Locations and Assets applications, by using the Select Hazards action.

A safety plan has a set of work assets, locations and assets, the hazards of which can be selected and copied onto the safety plan. A safety plan need not have any work assets, in this case the safety plan is generic, for example, a risk assessment that can be applied to a work order. The safety plan for a generic risk assessment might contain several hazards and you are then deleting those which are not applicable to the work order, or through configuration identifying which hazards are relevant, and which not.

In the Work Order Tracking application, the Safety Plan field is found in the Job Details section, in the same column as the Job Plan and PM fields. The Select Value has a radio button with three options, to show all safety plans, to show the safety plans associated with the primary location and asset on the work order (matched to the safety plan work assets), or to show the safety plans associated with the job plan referenced on the work order.

The Safety Plans that are applicable are those that match the primary location and asset on the work order, and not the locations and assets that may be referenced elsewhere on a work order. Safety Plans cannot be applied to a task, there is no Safety Plan tab on the Activities and Tasks application.

Safety Plans and the Safety tab on the work order can only be modified at WAPPR state, as standard. This is controlled from the OrganizationsA structural element of a Maximo database which is used for data sharing and is often aligned to a legal entity of an organisation. More application and the Work Order – Edit Rules setting. When using safety plans for generic risk assessments you will probably need to modify this so that the safety plan tab is modifiable on a work order at all statuses except COMP.

Safety Plans are often applied when the Job Plan is applied. The Work Assets tab in the Job Plan application is used to identify the locations and assets that the job plan is applicable to, and the safety plan that should be applied when the job plan is applied to a work order. A work asset record also has an Item field and for rotating items this also plays a part in selecting a safety plan. The location, asset and item fields are mutually exclusive, each record can only reference one of these fields.

The logic for selecting a safety plan when a job plan is applied is as follows:

1. Use the safety plan associated with the location referenced on the work order
2. Use the safety plan associated with the location’s rotating item
3. Use the safety plan associated with the asset referenced on the work order
4. Use the safety plan associated with the asset’s rotating item

In the Work Assets tab of a Job Plan when you select a Safety Plan to be associated with the location, asset or rotating item then you need to decide whether to set the “Default Safety Plan?” field, which you would do if you wanted the safety plan to be applied when the job plan is being applied.  You might decide that you only want the safety plan to be applied automatically when the job plan is applied, when there is a match by asset, and not when the work order references a location, or based on the rotating item of the asset, or location.

In the Work Order Tracking application if you remove a work plan, you will probably also remove the safety plan and there is an action to perform this, Remove Safety Plan.

Building Safety Plans

When you create a safety plan from scratch you decide the work assets (locations and assets) to which the safety plan will be applicable and then use the Select Hazards action to select the hazards that have been defined for the locations or assets that will be applicable to the safety plan being created.

The Assets and Locations applications each have a Safety tab with four subtabs:

• Hazards and Precautions
• Hazardous Materials
• Lock Out/Tag Out
• Safety-Related Assets

The first three tabs will be familiar, these are the hazards and their precautions, hazardous materials and lock out/tag out rules that can be copied onto the Safety Plan through the Select Hazards action. The Tag Outs are defined to eliminate a hazard, and so it is always a hazard that you are selecting onto a safety plan.

The Safety-Related Assets tab allows you to select hazards from other locations and assets which have been related to the location or asset. The Select Hazards action then shows you the hazards for the work asset as well as its safety-related assets (and locations).

There is an Organizations application setting in the action Safety Plan Options. The field “Show Work Asset’s Hazards in the Select Hazards Action?” when checked will show the hazards for the work asset, as well as any safety-related assets (and locations). In previous versions of Maximo, you needed to add the location or asset as a record in the Safety-Related Assets tab in order to show the hazards of the work asset itself. With this field checked (it isn’t the default) then Maximo will also show the hazards of the work asset, when it is unchecked, it won’t, not unless you entered the asset (or location) to the Safety-Related Asset tab, which is not intuitive.

On a Safety Plan for Hazards which have precautions and Hazardous Materials there is a Related Location or Related Asset which is used to determine which hazards are copied to the work order when the safety plan is applied. If one of these hazards has no Related Location or Related Asset then it will always be applied to the work order, you can consider this a generic hazard for the safety plan.

On a Safety Plan for Hazards with Tag Outs then there is a Work Location or Work Asset which is where the hazard exists which you are eliminating through the lock out / tag out procedure. This may involve tagging out Related Locations or Related Assets. When the Safety Plan is applied to a work order it is the tag outs where the Work Location or Work Asset matches the primary location or asset on the work order which are copied, and not where there is a match on the Related Location or Related Asset. Different fields are used for the matching between Hazards/Hazardous Materials and Hazards with Tag Outs.

The Work Order Tracking application has two actions for Remove Safety Plan and Select Safety Hazards. The Select Safety Hazards dialog is similar to the Select Hazards dialog on the Safety Plans application; however, it only works with Safety-Related Assets. Therefore, currently, if you do not want to set up Safety Plans, you are still forced to use the workaround and add on the Location or Asset a reference to itself in the Safety-Related Assets tab.

You can manually add hazards with precautions, hazardous materials or hazards with tag outs in the Safety Plan tab of Work Order Tracking application. Therefore, you can start using safety on work orders with only the setup of the hazards themselves. Over time you can build up the data which can then help you to define the hazards for Locations and Assets, and then the Safety Plans themselves. So you needn’t put off using safety, because of the not inconsiderable effort required to build the safety plans, start simply and then build-out from there.

Safety Module Entity Diagram

With the exception of the HAZARDS table/object, which is defined at the Organization level, all other tables/objects are defined at the SiteA structural element of a Maximo database that is used for data separation. More level.

The Safety Module consists of four applications:

Precautions – The base table of the application is PRECAUTIONS, and the Associated Hazards is based on HAZARDPREC

Hazards – The base table of the application is HAZARDS, the Associated Precautions is based on HAZARDPREC, and the Associated Tag Outs is based on SAFETYLEXICON, a table that is also used in the Locations and Assets applications.

Lock Out / Tag Out – The base table of the application is TAGOUT, and the Lock Out Operations is based on TAGLOCK and LOCKOUT. In the Lock Out Operations table window, of the fields you see in the standard user interface the DESCRIPTION and REQUIREDSTATE both come from the LOCKOUT table.

Safety Plans – The base table of the application is SAFETYPLAN, and the Work Assets table window is based on SPWORKASSET. When you use the Select Hazards action to copy hazards from the work assets or related locations and assets, then the records are added to SPLEXICONLINK table, which points to the SAFETYLEXICON records.

Safety records also exist on Assets and Locations applications in the Safety tab:

Assets and Locations – The Hazards, Hazardous Materials and Lock Out/Tag Out records are all entered into the SAFETYLEXICON table. The hazard’s precautions are displayed and are those associated with the hazard record, the HAZARDPREC record.  The Lock Out Operations are the records coming from the TAGLOCK and LOCKOUT tables associated with the Tag Out. The required state, apply sequence and remove sequence fields are modifiable.

• The Safety-Related tab and table window is based on the table SPRELATEDASSET
• The safety data associated with an asset or location is not automatically copied to the work order when it references the location or asset. It must be added to a Safety Plan using the Select Hazards action and then it is copied to the work order when the safety plan is applied.
• The Select Safety Hazards action in the Work Order Tracking application allows you to select hazards that are related to the location or asset referenced on the work order, but only their safety-related assets, and not the hazards on the location or asset itself, unfortunately.

A Safety Plan can be referenced in the Job Plans application in the Work Assets tab, table JPASSETSPLINK. When a Job Plan is applied to a work order the Safety Plan can be automatically applied, alternatively a Safety Plan can be selected based on the work order’s location or asset or their rotating item being referenced in the Work Assets table window of a job plan that has already been applied to the work order.

Work Order Safety Entity Diagram

In the Work Order Tracking application, safety data can be created by applying a Safety Plan, either directly or with a job plan, or by entering safety data on the work order or by using the Select Safety Hazards action. You can also have a hazard created as a result of planning material where the item has a hazard marked as a hazardous material. 

Some of the entities will look familiar from the Safety Module ERD, the table names preceded with “WO”. What you see in the Safety Plan Tab of the Work Order Tracking application is a subset of this data: 

• The Hazards table window is a record from the WOSAFETYSPLINK table. The Hazards Precautions is a record from WOHAZARDPREC table.
• The Hazardous Materials table window is a record from the WOSAFETYSPLINK table.
• The Lock Out/Tag Out tab has a Hazards and Tag Outs table window, both of which are supported by the WOSAFETYSPLINK table. The Lock Out Tasks table window comes from the WOTAGLOCK table.

There are 8 tables in work order safety, but only 3 of these display records in the Work Order Tracking Safety Plan tab. When a safety plan is applied to a work order all safety data related to the safety plan is copied to the work order tables, including precautions and lock out operations. If you changed any of the data in the applications of the Safety module or on Locations or Assets, it would have no effect on the safety data already written to the work order. 

The WOHAZARD and WOTAGOUT and their supporting tables are copied first, and then the WOSAFETYLINK is derived from this data. The WOSAFETYLINK table is supporting the Work Order Tracking application user interface in a similar way to how SPLEXICONLINK is supporting the user interface in the Safety Plans application.

You will notice that each table has an attribute WOSAFETYDATASOURCE, this can have one of three values:

• SP – Record automatically added when a Safety Plan was applied.
• WP – Record was automatically added when a Work Plan Material was specified.
• WO – Record was added by the user on the work order.

Some points to note:

• A record in WOHAZARDPREC only occurs if the hazard (in WOHAZARD) is precaution enabled (PRECAUTIONENABLED=1)
• In WOHAZARD if TAGOUTENABLED=1 then PRECAUTIONENABLED=0 and HAZMATENABLED=0
• In WOHAZARD, the following fields may contain values only if HAZMATENABLED=1; MSDSNUM, HEALTHRATING, FLAMMABILITYRATING, REACTIVITYRATING, CONTACTRATING
• In WOSAFETYLINK only one of ASSETNUM and LOCATION can have a value
• A record in WOTAGOUT can only occur if in WOHAZARD table TAGOUTENABLED=1
• When a record is created in WOTAGOUT then the records of WOTAGLOCK and WOLOCKOUT are also created.
• In WOTAGOUT only one of ASSETNUM and LOCATION can have a value
• In WOLOCKOUT only one of ASSETNUM, LOCATION or DEVICEDESCRIPTION can have a value
• Each WOHAZARD record will have a WOSAFETYLINK record with a null TAGOUTID. If the hazard is tagout-enabled, then either the ASSETNUM or LOCATION in WOSAFETYLINK will be populated, it specifies the related asset or location. Precaution-enabled and hazardous-material hazards may or may not have a related asset/location; they are not required.
• Each WOTAGOUT record will have a WOSAFETYLINK record with a TAGOUTID and either an ASSETNUM or LOCATION. If the tagout is related to a hazard, then HAZARDID will also be populated. 
• The WOSAFETYLINK attributes ASSETNUM/LOCATION will be the hazard’s related asset or location. The WOTAGOUT attributes ASSETNUM/LOCATION will be the asset or location being tagged, the values can differ between the two tables. 
• A WOSAFETYLINK record and its related WOHAZARD record have the same value for the attribute WOSAFETYDATASOURCE

There are spare fields in quite a few of the safety related tables which copy over to their work order equivalent records. If you need to extend the safety data with additional attributes then it is best to use these, creating a crossover domain may not always be possible. These spare fields were written to copy over to the work order from the original design of the safety applications.

• HAZARD fields HAZ01 through HAZ20 are copied to the same fields in WOHAZARD
• PRECAUTION fields PREC01 through PREC10 are copied to the same fields in WOPRECAUTION
• TAGOUT fields TAG01 through TAG08 are copied to the same fields in WOTAGOUT
• LOCKOUT fields LCK01 through LCK10 are copied to the same fields in WOLOCKOUT
• TAGLOCK fields TL01 through TL10 are copied to the same fields in WOTAGLOCK
• SAFETYLEXICON fields SL01 through SL05 are copied to the WOSL01 through WOSL05 fields in WOSAFETYLINK

The safety plans that can be selected onto a work order are those for the same site.

If you enter a work plan material item that has a related hazard, then it is added as a hazard to the work order. This hazard can only be removed by deleting the work plan material requirement.