“Sign, sign, everywhere a sign, sign.”

It’s more than a song lyric; it’s a reality in much of today’s industrial environments. Increased emphasis on worker safety, OSHA regulations, and today’s growing multi-lingual workforce has created new challenges in the arena of safety signs and tags. Smart companies are seeking out new cost effective alternatives and strategies to meet these challenges head on.

Dealing with safety identification products and compliance issues can be a daunting task. Doing so in a changing regulatory environment makes it much more difficult and challenging. In addition, all operations have areas that can take a toll on your safety signs and tags. Developing a plan to ensure your safety identification systems comply with these issues will help increase worker safety and generate cost savings.

Continual replacement of signs and tags is not only time consuming and expensive, damaged signs can compromise worker safety and lead to fines and penalties by regulatory agencies. By evaluating each area of your operation and installing the proper signs and tags, you can be fully compliant, decrease costs, increase worker safety and avoid costly fines and penalties.

Proper selection of safety identification products should be a straight-forward process. To avoid the confusion, your safety identification products should exhibit these key features:

• Abrasion Resistant;

• Chemical Resistant;

• Water Proof;

• High Visibility Colors;

• Lot Traceability;

• Salt Water Resistant;

• Steam Resistant;

• UV Rated for 10 Years;

• Compliance with all regulatory requirements;

• Full color processing capabilities.

New technologies are emerging in the safety sign and tag industry centered on the use of In-Mold –Technology (IMT), a patented process allowing the graphic to be molded as part of the sign. IMT meets or exceeds all of the requirements necessary for integration into a fully compliant safety program.

Using signs with IMT lets the safety professional add such things as photographs, bar coding, special markings and trademarks.

Enhanced flexibility and proven durability are two of the hallmarks of IMT safety marking products.

Proper testing is a key to assuring a fully compliant safety product. Your specific industry may have its own testing protocols necessary before integration into your company’s safety program. Check with your sign manufacturer to make sure they have the ability to conduct their own series of testing, utilizing independent laboratories and that you are allowed to view the test data.

IMT safety markings for instance have lead the way in transparency as it relates to testing results and their applications to your safety culture.

How do you pick the winning combination of compliance, testing, graphic integrity and cost that is right for your situation? The IMT process allows all of these variables to be met and gives the safety professional the flexibility to plan around one program. Being wrong costs you more than installing the correct signs and tags for the environment the first time. In-Mold- Technology has created cost effective solutions for today’s sign dilemmas.

Albert Einstein is often quoted saying, “Changing nothing and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.” The same holds true for your safety identification products. Many times we are creatures of habit and do what we’ve always done.

Advancements through In-Mold-Technology have changed the face of what is possible in safety marking products. IMT presents new opportunities to increase worker safety, lower cost and help reduce the chance for regulatory fines and penalties. FSM