Maintaining warehouse facilities safe is an ongoing challenge for supervisors, but few risk prevention plans carry the ROI the safety painting offers. In fact, OSHA has determined that the upper warehouse mishaps include moving equipment hitting workers, and slip and fall incidents.
The right paint not only creates safer pathways, but paint may also increase traction on floors and even improves the psychological well-being of workers. Obviously, the paint will not prevent all injuries, but it can alert workers to many possible hazards. Envision a road with no lane markings, road signs, as well as stoplights, there will be chaos on the roadways.
The exact same might be said for warehouses that do not direct people or equipment traffic. Floor lines must be used constantly through the center and provide workers with color-coded safety instructions.
Here are the OSHA guidelines for floor marketings and lines for safety: The lines used to delineate the aisles can be any color as long as they clearly specify the region considered as aisle distance.
The lines can be made up of points, rectangles, stripes, or continuous lines, but they too must specify the aisle region. The recommended width of aisle markers varies from two inches to 6 inches, so so, any width of two inches or more is considered acceptable. The recommended width of the aisles is at least 3 legs wider than the largest equipment to be used or even the smallest of 4 feet.
While temporary floor lines might be a fast fix, they are not ideal for warehouses with floor plans which don’t change. Based on the quantity of traffic through your center, semi-permanent or permanent paint may be used.
Working with us may help you determine the best options. OSHA doesn’t dictate color selection, but there are industry-wide best practices for a commercial painting to warehouse safety. Yellow lines state aisles and paths of traffic, and red paint can be used for serious hazards and warnings. The combinations of red and black, black and white, black, and black and yellow are universally known.
Beyond that, facilities can select which color-coded system works best but it has to be consistent through the warehouse. Workflows might be structured through the construction using painted paths that might help increase productivity.
Using paint, areas for equipment storage or maintenance might be designated, and paths of travel might be established for equipment operators. Besides, specialty industrial floor coatings may be utilized to increase traction and strength.
Discovering the right paint type and applying it correctly is key to coating aisles and stairways for protection against drops. Industrial floor coatings add a buffer zone between traffic or chemical spills and the concrete, reducing the wear which leads to dangerous and damaged warehouse floors.
Peeling, fading, and cracked floor markers are equally as bad as with no markings at all. While warehouse paint is meant to withstand high volumes of traffic and wear from equipment, it is not going to last forever.
Once the job is complete, we will help facility managers plan for proper maintenance, care, and cleaning. That training should be shared with warehouse employees and best practices should be established to extend the longevity of the paint. From start to finish, commercial safety marketings and floor coatings need to be managed and applied by professionals who have experience working in warehouses like yours.