Today's best practice workplace safety signs – in contrast to older, out-of-date styles – use ANSI designs, ISO graphical symbols, and offer critical details to help keep workers safe.
Signage isn’t just a quick fix to satisfy regulatory requirements. Signs that use today's ANSI and ISO best practices can help workplaces to meet and exceed safety goals and risk objectives. That’s important every day, but especially in our COVID-19 environment.
MILFORD, Pa. (PRWEB) May 21, 2020
Clarion Safety Systems, a leading manufacturer of safety labels, signs and tags, has expanded its product line to offer a full portfolio of COVID-19 safety products. These new visual safety solutions can help businesses to keep employees, visitors and customers safe by supporting social distancing policies, reminding of hygiene protocols, and reinforcing PPE requirements.
“We’ve always taken our role in providing effective visual safety communication products extremely seriously. After all, not only is hazard communication fundamental in reducing risk to workers, it also helps to keep companies in compliance with applicable codes and standards, allowing them to continue to make their products and services available,” says Ron Crawford, CEO of Clarion Safety.
“During these unprecedented times, the part that our company plays in product and workplace safety has taken on an even more amplified meaning. That’s why we took early steps necessary to stay fully operational over the past months to support the needs of our customers; many of them are in essential industries like medical equipment manufacturing, chemical processing and distribution, supplying life-saving resources to combat COVID-19. And it’s why we’re offering this new line of workplace safety products, especially critical right now to support the needs of shuttered facilities that are beginning the process of reopening.”
Clarion Safety’s New Product Line
As essential businesses expand production in response to the reopening economy, and as workplaces that faced closures due to the pandemic look to resume some level of in-person operations with quarantines being pealed back, safety is paramount. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and local health agencies help to establish guidelines to follow, many of which can be supported by signs, labels and floor markers. Clarion Safety’s new product line is specifically designed to support back to work plans in helping to stop the spread of the virus. For example, the solutions contain messaging to inform visitors of curbside pickup instructions, to remind workers how best to disinfect hands, and to communicate general safety precautions like maintaining social distancing and wearing a face mask. Clarion Safety’s COVID-19 safety label and sign products include:
- Wash Your Hands Signs
- Virus Prevention Tip Signs
- Virus Symptom Awareness Signs
- PPE-related Labels
- PPE-related Signs
- Quarantine-related Signs
- Please Stand Here Floor Markers
- Social Distancing Notice Signs
- Curbside Pickup Signs
Visual Safety Best Practices for Today’s Workplaces
Clarion Safety specializes in designing safety signs that are not only compliant with OSHA regulations, but use the latest American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and International Organization for Standardization (ISO) warnings technology to more effectively create awareness and explain hazards specific to the issue at hand. The company’s COVID-19 notice, caution and warning signs use ANSI Z535-style designs as well as ISO standardized graphical symbols. The style of these signs offer critical detail to help keep workers safe.
“OSHA currently only stipulates minimal requirements – the most basic level – for sign content and design. These simplified formats are common in today’s workplaces, but they’re not the only choice. The best practice principles offered in the ANSI and ISO standards are considered the state-of-the-art for today’s warnings,” says Angela Lambert, Clarion Safety’s Director of Standards Compliance. In addition to having fifteen years of warnings and liability experience, Lambert is actively involved at the leadership level in the ANSI and ISO standards. That includes a recent nomination as chair of ANSI Z535.1, a standard that focuses on safety colors, including those used in safety signs, labels, tags and markings.
“Signage isn’t just a quick fix to satisfy regulatory requirements. It can help workplaces to meet and exceed safety goals and risk objectives. By choosing signs that are up-to-date with today’s ANSI and ISO best practices, workplaces are doing everything they can to move towards a safer, more productive environment. That’s important every day, but especially so in our COVID-19 environment.”
Old Versus New Ways to Warn
Many safety professionals are unaware of the progress made in safety sign design standards over the past decade, leading to safety signs being out of sync with today’s best practices.
Outdated signs typically do not use graphics or symbols, do not use signal words appropriate to the level of risk and lack substantive information. New, best practice signs, in contrast, use colorful ANSI formats to attract attention, use proper risk level signal words, use standardized graphical symbols to help communicate across language barriers and show more complete information, helping people to make better, safer decisions.
“Whether a company’s objective is to meet ANSI/ISO best practices, OSHA regulations or CDC/WHO guidelines, our team is here to help. We offer a full catalog of safety signs, as well as online resources and a free assessment service, where our trained professionals review a facility’s signage and make recommendations for improvements,” says Lambert.
To learn more about safety sign best practices, visit Clarion Safety’s online Resource Center.
Clarion Safety also accepts media inquiries and speaking opportunities related to workplace safety and risk and visual communications best practices. To submit a media inquiry, visit the company’s “Newsroom” and select the “For the Media” tab.
ABOUT CLARION SAFETY SYSTEMS
Clarion Safety Systems, LLC, is the leading designer and manufacturer of visual safety solutions that help customers in more than 180 industries worldwide to make their products and premises safer. Clarion offers a full range of standard and custom products including machinery safety labels, environmental and facility safety signs, pipe and valve identification markings, lockout/tagout products, and safety-grade photoluminescent egress path-marking escape systems. Founded in 1990, the company continues to play a leading role in the development and writing of international and national standards for safety signs, labels, and markings. Clarion is headquartered at 190 Old Milford Road in Milford, PA, 18337, and online at http://www.clarionsafety.com.
