Red tag
“Red tag” is not one term. In a manufacturing plant it usually means one of two unrelated things: a 5S sort tag, attached to an item to mark it as a candidate for removal from the work area, or a lockout/tagout danger tag, attached to an energy-isolating device to warn that equipment must not be operated.
Outside the plant it also means a condemned-structure placard, a retail discount promotion, and, in the Philippines, a political accusation of communist affiliation. These senses share a colour and nothing else.
A 5S red tag is a temporary label attached during the sort step of 5S, recording that nobody has yet demonstrated the item is needed in that location. It is a question, not a verdict.
A lockout/tagout tag — commonly red, commonly titled DANGER — is a warning device attached to an energy-isolating device, sitting inside OSHA’s 29 CFR 1910.147. A tag does not prevent anything — it communicates. A lock physically prevents operation; a tag does not.
These must never be muddled: a sort tag asks a question about an item, an abnormality tag records a condition on a machine, and a danger tag protects a person. Only the third one has anybody’s life attached to it.
How MYREX relates to tags on a machine: MYREX records abnormality tags — the TPM sense — on a high-definition 3D capture of the actual machine. MYREX is not a lockout/tagout system: it does not manage isolation permits, does not track LOTO devices or locks, and does not record group lockbox state.
Sources and notes
OSHA 29 CFR 1910.147, The Control of Hazardous Energy (Lockout/Tagout) — for the lockout/tagout sense. 5S / lean manufacturing practice — for the sort-tag sense. No single source covers every sense of the term; that is the point of this page.
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