Color is essential in hazcom, safety & industrial communication

Color-coding is a visual organizational technique that is used in all aspects of the workplace. Visual cues using color are essential and often required in the plant, warehouse and shop for safety, visual communication, lean initiatives and quality improvement and efficiency. Color is effectively used by professionals in many industries for labeling, signage, datacom and pipe marking plus dozens of other applications because:

• Color provides more effective communication

• Color results in quicker comprehension

• Color attracts attention to a message

• Color helps categorize a message

Common colors are critical for pipe marking as outlined in ANSI/ASME (American Society of Testing and Materials) A13.1 and the Scheme for Identification of Piping Systems. Color codes critical for hazard communication are outlined in OSHA 29 CFR 1910.144 and the ANSI/NEMA Z535 series:

• Danger signs need to be red, white and black

• Caution signs need to be yellow, black and white

• Safety instruction signs need to be green and white

• Safety red is used for protection equipment, containers holding flammable liquid, lights at barricades, fire alarm boxes, fire exit signs and sprinkler pipes

• Safety yellow is to denote cautions and hazards, construction equipment, handrails/guardrails, material handling equipment, pipes carrying dangerous materials, waste containers, exposed edges

• Safety orange is used for dangerous machine parts, insides of guards, safety start buttons, exposed parts

• Safety blue is used for caution and equipment under repair, warning at a starting point or power source

• Safety green is used for first aid equipment, general safety equipment, safety bulletin boards, gas masks, stretchers, showers

• Black and white is used to denote traffic and housekeeping markings, dead ends of aisles or hallways, stairways, directional signs and garbage cans

• Safety purple is used for radiation hazards used in combination with yellow on tags, labels, signs and floor markers

Epson LABELWORKS PX supplies include 118 sizes and colors of shrink tube, adhesive label, magnetic, reflective, fluorescent, iron-on fabric and other supplies. Designed to be the best value and performance supply on the market, LABELWORKS PX color supplies cost the same as standard black-on-white cartridges.

Used with Epson LABELWORKS PX printers and Label Editor Professional software, users can easily design safety labels, signs and indicators with 1000s of compliant symbols and pre-formatted templates including safety, electrical, medical, laboratory, security, environment, construction, food, seasonal, abbreviations, arrows, parenthetical marks and symbols.