The Importance of Safety Striping
Your workers count on the clearance around your aisles, storage bins, and loading docks. Without striping, you risk serious injuries, not just to your staff, but your machinery and mortar, too. Striping does more than just keep employees from getting stuck between walls and equipment, though. It can even guide your manufacturing strategy.
Fortunately, The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has taken the time to draft guidelines for striping width and color so that workers carry their knowledge from warehouse to warehouse. On-boarding new employees doesn’t get easier. New workers arrive on their first day of work with an understanding of your pedestrian areas, dock bays, and fire exits. Now that’s efficiency.
Safety Lines and Hazards
Safety hazards aren’t always obvious, so markings alert workers to them and spell out specific actions they should take around them. When stairwells, ledges, and dips in the floor are clearly marked, indoor vehicles and workers can avoid potentially fatal accidents. OSHA guidelines tell you exactly how to mark electrical equipment that demands special safety equipment. The standards for electrical clearance pack complexity into every line description so that you can prepare every surface for its unique hazards.
Aisle markings limit vehicles to approved areas. Lines should be between two and six inches wide, but if you have particularly wide equipment, striping widths are pushed up to three feet wider than your largest tools.
Storage Bin Areas
Every manufacturing environment has a complex working strategy that shaves minutes off your production. Bin markings keep your strategy ticking along as it should. They tell your staff know where to place their tools and materials. Blue, green, and black striping is used for finished and unfinished products, including their raw materials. Orange demarcates storage for products being kept aside for inspection, helping your facility to run smoothly.
Floor markings have an entire universe of functionality outside OSHA guidelines. They can be used to develop a lean manufacturing strategy and even to train staff to comply with your unique safety requirements.
The Superiority of Paint
While floor marking tapes and stencils can be used as striping, they’re difficult to clean and tend to lose their adhesion quickly. Tape gets scruffy and unhygienic. An epoxy-covered, washable coating makes easy work of those challenges and is especially important in food and pharmaceutical production facilities. ISO-accredited paint and varnishes don’t force you to deal with sticky residues, so they’re easier to replace with basic shot blasting preparation. ISO 9001 and 14001 are global standards that serve up the durability and strength your facility counts on to succeed. There are more than 225 standards that bring you state-of-the-art coatings for steel, concrete, and wood, including test methods and surface preparation.
Preparing Your Surface
Your coating is only as successful as its preparation method, and the latest equipment achieves a clean surface better than ever. Using a self-propelled shot blaster, Fresh Paint Inc, can clear surfaces for line-stripe application so that you receive the lasting finish you rely on to churn profits. This state of the art equipment separates dust from abrasives so that your facility can get back to work faster. We also prepare cracks and joints that can make your coating wear away. We’ll use floor grinding and patching to make your paint last, using epoxy as a hygienic and self-leveling layer.
Your facility’s safety and manufacturing speed rely on clear and comprehensive striping, so you shouldn’t have to tolerate a shoddy coating. Fresh Paint Inc. will help you to develop a strategy that supports your unique manufacturing environment and carry it out in a durable, pocket-friendly way.
