The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Z535 standards are a family of six consensus standards that define best practices in the United States for safety colors, signs, labels, symbols, tags and how safety information is presented in product manuals. The changes occurring in the newly revised Z535 standards (due out in early summer 2011) will play a pivotal role in redefining the look and content of product safety labels placed on large manufacturing equipment in nearly all industries, from material handling and packaging equipment to food processing and semiconductor manufacturing machinery. Clarion Safety Systems President Geoffrey Peckham has been a member of the ANSI Z535 committee since 1992, is chairperson for the ANSI Z535.2 Standard for Environmental and Facility Safety Signs, and has significantly contributed to defining the new safety label standards used by industry to improve safety and reduce accidents.

Milford, PA (PRWEB) April 30, 2011

Clarion Safety Systems President Geoffrey Peckham is often considered the most highly regarded thought leader for safety label design in the United States. Peckham has been a pivotal member of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Z535 committee since 1992 and is chairperson for the ANSI Z535.2 Standard for Environmental and Facility Safety Signs and chair of ANSI’s U.S. technical advisory group (TAG) to the parallel ISO standards committee for safety signs and product safety labels (ISO/TC 145). Peckham played a key role in bringing harmonization between the ANSI and ISO product safety labeling standards – helping U.S. machinery manufacturers to now sell products globally. It was no surprise, therefore, to see that much of the large machinery at the ProMat 2011 Exhibition featured Clarion safety labels in compliance with the new ANSI Z535 standards.

The ANSI Z535 standards are developed in strict accordance with the American...

The Hazard Defined

Before you post a confined space safety sign, you must understand whether or not your specific situation is a confined space or not. OSHA defines “confined space” and “permit-required confined space” as follows:

A confined space has limited or restricted means for entry or exit, and it is not designed for continuous employee occupancy. Confined spaces include, but are not limited to underground vaults, tanks, storage bins, manholes, pits, silos, process vessels, and pipelines. OSHA uses the term “permit-required confined space” (permit space) to describe a confined space that has one or more of the following characteristics: contains or has the potential to contain a hazardous atmosphere; contains a material that has the potential to engulf an entrant; has walls that converge inward or floors that slope downward and taper into a smaller area which could trap or asphyxiate an entrant; or contains any other recognized safety or health hazard, such as unguarded machinery, exposed live wires, or heat stress. (http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/confinedspaces/index.html)

When Confined Space Safety Signs are Required

If your situation is considered a permit-required confined space, you must understand that OSHA pretty much requires you to post a safety sign at every entry point to that space. The OSHA regulation for confined space signs reads as follows:

1910.146(c)(2)

“If the workplace contains permit spaces, the employer shall inform exposed employees, by posting danger signs or by any other equally effective means, of the existence and location of and the danger posed by the permit spaces. NOTE: A sign reading DANGER – PERMIT-REQUIRED CONFINED SPACE, DO NOT ENTER or using other similar language would satisfy the requirement for a sign.”

When Confined Space Safety Signs are Not Required

Ordinarily, information about permit spaces is most effectively...

Most facilities have piping and processes that require pipe and valve markings. Whether you manage safety for a school or a factory, the basic requirements are the same. Just knowing what’s in the pipe and which way it’s contents are flowing can reduce the risk of hazards. How? Because these labels and markings quickly communicate critical information that assists those supervising production processes so they can make right decisions. And in an emergency situation, proper pipe and valve marking can communicate critical information to key response personnel…information such as pipe content, flow direction, origin and destination. Such knowledge, at the point of viewer interaction, greatly increases your ability to control processes and potential hazards should the need arise.

Pipe marking and applicable codes

ANSI A13.1 Pipe Markers – Pipe marking standards are provided by both the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Code. Both organizations have published the same code and both have numbered it A13.1. These are the standards that apply to most facilities and pipe markers. Whether it is an oil refinery or a gourmet restaurant, ANSI A13.1 applies.

Ammonia Pipe Markers (IIAR) – This standard is published by the International Institute For Ammonia Refrigeration. Anhydrous ammonia is widely used as a refrigerant in food and drink production sites, including meat, fish, and poultry processing facilities, ice cream and dairy facilities, juice and soft drink processing facilities, wineries, and breweries.  Refrigerant grade anhydrous ammonia is a clear, colorless liquid or gas, free from visible impurities. It is at least 99.95 percent pure ammonia. Water cannot have a content above 33 parts per million (ppm) and oil cannot have a content above 2 ppm. Purity of the ammonia is essential to ensure proper function of the refrigeration system. It’s also deadly.

Medical Gas Pipe Markers...

The content and format of your product’s safety signs and labels is incredibly important. The mistake of having incomplete content and the wrong formats can lead to accidents that result in personal injuries, deaths, property damage, and the litigation that often follows from such occurrences. That’s why determining the proper content for your product safety labels is a serious matter and one that deserves your utmost attention.

Step One: Recognize that your company’s legal obligation is to meet or exceed the current standards that apply to your products, and this includes the latest American National Standard on safety labeling (ANSI Z535.4 – 2007, though the every-five-year  revision of this standard will be published next year…stay tuned to my blog to get an overview of the new version of the ANSI standards prior to their release). Back to the topic at hand…your warning labels. They need to be up-to-date or you could be faced with a plaintiff’s attorney challenging your efforts in court with a solid argument that your product safety labels are “inadequate” and that you did not meet your legal “duty to warn” all because they were not compliant with the standards in effect at the time your product was manufactured.

Step Two: As you scope out your safety label project, recognize right off the bat that the need is not to develop a safety label for one of your products (or, for that matter, if you have multiple products the task is not to develop all the safety labels for just one of your products). The need is to create a safety label program for your entire line of products, addressing the needs for all of your anticipated markets (foreign and domestic). Why? Because the ramifications of doing a half-way job in this critical engineering exercise...

The ANSI Z533 Committee for Safety Signs and Colors meets once a year. According to the American National Standards Institute’s policy, the committees that write ANSI’s consensus standards must annually meet for the purpose of reviewing their standards. Every five years the ANSI accredited standards committee must choose to either revise, reaffirm or withdraw their standards. The goal is to keep our nation’s standards current and relevant and useful for industry and the people they serve. Revising standards is a process that, for the ANSI Z535 committee, is on a strict five year cycle. This is the last year in a five-year cycle and thus, March’s meeting is incredibly important as we will be reviewing how the proposed draft revised standards faired in the committee and public review voting process and we will address all comments and any negative ballots. There are six standards in the ANSI Z535 family and if the particular standard had enough votes to pass, the end result of March’s meeting will be directions to each subcommittee chairman to make any minor editorial changes needed to ready their subcommittee’s document for publication.

As Chairman of the ANSI Z535.2 Standard for Environmental and Facility Safety Signs, Clarion’s president, Geoffrey Peckham, oversaw this standard’s first major rewriting since it was first published in 1991. The new 2011 version of this standard was completely rewritten to clarify the scope and purpose of the standard, as well as more refined terminology, design considerations, illustrations and sign categories to thoroughly define the full range of safety sign design criteria to be used by facilities in the United States. The goal is to effectively communicate safety so less accidents happen, lives are preserved, and injuries are lessened in the American workplace. Clarion stands for these goals – reducing risk, protecting people, it’s what we’re all about.