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Safety Myths We Could All Live Without Safety MythsI'm going to level with you today: There's a lot, and a mean a metric ton, of misinformation when it comes to safety in the workplace. The more experience you have, the more and more you discover which of the things you've been told actually seem to hold up to the action of a real workplace, and which advice becomes clearly idealistic and less useable. That said, why can't we just skip past the clutter? Why do myths about the nature of safety and accident prevention continue to circulate when experienced practitioners know them to be complete bologna? To be honest, I can't answer that, but hopefully what I can do is more useful; in this article, we're going to go over some common workplace safety myths and dissect them so that, with a whole lot of luck, they won't leave anyone's lips ever again. Accidents Happen Safety Myths AccidentsFirst of all, yes, accidents do happen… but the statement itself is dismissive, and suggests that some things are just out of our control. The problem with this sentiment is twofold. First of all, it's a slippery slope: If you decide one thing is out of your control, it's easier to accept that another thing might be as well. Before you know it, you're leaving too much up to chance and not enough up to your problem solving skills. The second problem is that the idea that accidents just "happen" of their own accord is silly and untrue. There is always something you can do, and you should always be actively improving your safety by finding these things as they come along. One counter example to this that people sometimes come up with is a case in which an employee does something really boneheaded and gets themselves into a dangerous situation. "Isn't that kind of out of my control?" one might ask. Actually, there are two possible situations here: 1. The worker deliberately put themselves in harm's way for some unknown reason. In this case, a resu

Improving Indoor Air Quality Indoor Air QualityWhen trying to make improvements to the workplace, many companies don't even consider the actual air that is breathed in by everyone all day. Indoor air quality can be a significant problem that can have a wide range of different effects on employees throughout the facility. Some of these issues can be immediately seen, such as with allergies. Others may take longer to develop, but can be very serious. If you are not taking air quality seriously in your facility, you are not only doing everyone a disservice, but you could be exposing the company to the risk of potential lawsuits years down the road. With this in mind, take some time to look at five of the most important things that you should know about indoor air quality, and how you can make simple changes to improve it. According to OSHA's Safety and Health Topics: Poor indoor air quality (IAQ) has been tied to symptoms like headaches, fatigue, trouble concentrating, and irritation of the eyes, nose, throat and lungs. Also, some specific diseases have been linked to specific air contaminants or indoor environments, like asthma with damp indoor environments. In addition, some exposures, such as asbestos and radon, do not cause immediate symptoms but can lead to cancer after many years. 5 Things to Know about Indoor Air Quality 1. Proper Ventilation and Filtering One of the biggest problems in most workplaces is that the air in the facility doesn't get properly circulated. As the air is breathed, moved around machinery and exposed to cleaning chemicals, it keeps picking up more and more contaminants along the way. Over time, this air can become hazardous to your health and lead to things like headaches, allergies and many other issues. This is why OSHA and many other regulatory organizations recommend reviewing your facilities air ventilation system and filtering. By taking the air from within the facility and venting it outside, all of these common contam

Lean has been helping companies streamline their production, eliminate waste, and generally improve the way things are done for many years. Initially, the concepts behind lean were primarily used only in companies and facilities that were directly involved with physical product creation, such as manufacturing plants, factory floors and things of this nature. However, over time the lean methodologies have been adapted and implemented in almost every other type of business, ranging from health care to information technology, and many more. When done properly, lean can help improve virtually any work environment to help eliminate waste, improve communication, and to help ensure that the products or services being developed are indeed something customers will be interested in. For instance, when working in an information technology environment, it is important to be able to understand how lean strategies can be implemented, and why they are so important. The following are some of the most significant reasons why lean IT strategies should be taken seriously by any company that uses technology in their business (which is almost all of them!). Lean Promotes Ownership One of the things about lean strategies in an IT environment is that virtually every task completed is owned by an individual. Even if a person does not do all the work for a particular project, he or she will be directly responsible for overseeing it. This creates a sense of ownership, which can help in a variety of ways. It will give other teams a single point of contact for obtaining updates, providing feedback, or requesting changes. This will also allow the owner of a specific project to drive the progress directly, rather than having to rely on large committees or other types of groups to receive pertinent information. It is important to note that just because one person owns a process or project does not mean that he or she can simply dictate things to other groups. Instead, that person is there to

Tips & Tricks for Efficiently Tracking Lean Projects Recently, we wrote about a couple of problems facing many Lean practitioners. These were problems that hindered their learning process and often caused overconfidence. Amongst the advice to help combat these problems arose the need for detailed tracking and note taking with regards to practice and progress. Being able to accurately track not only the effects but also the process of a Lean project is critical to ongoing success, and is a key to stimulating growth amongst not only the receiving end of your project objectives, but also amongst the employees and Lean practitioners themselves. To start off, let's take a look at the current state of Lean project tracking for many Lean practitioners. A recent LinkedIn discussion posed the very question of project tracking, and sought to understand a few different distinct metrics. In addition to measuring the effectiveness of any program when it comes to completion, tracking can also be about measuring the scope of your projects, so that you can accurately project what the effects will be before you actually reach the stage at which you expect them. Part of this "scope" involves tracking exactly who is involved with your project, who is affected, and how they are progressing in their respective tasks. Where we are now First of all, it's important to evaluate the current methods that are prevalent in Lean record keeping. The LinkedIn discussion starter, self-identified as Ian R., mentions in his opening post that, when he last posed the question about a year ago, the consensus was that most practitioners were simply using excel spreadsheets for their tracking needs. While there's nothing wrong with relying on Excel for the basics, other users were quick to offer up some slicker alternatives, signaling a sharp (and welcomed, in our book) departure from some of the more basic methods. Unsurprisingly, there exist several specialist software applications whose n

Make Construction Safety a Priority Everyone knows that construction sites can be very dangerous. The more you know about the types of danger you will face, however, will help you to take steps toward keeping everyone safe. Look over the following 10 safety facts and see what you can learn about how to improve the overall safety of your facility. In addition to using this information to help you to make safety improvements, you can also show these items to the workers at any site so they can be more aware. Some of these facts may surprise people, and cause them to be more aware of their surroundings. According to OSHA, "Nearly 6.5 million people work at approximately 252,000 construction sites across the nation on any given day. The fatal injury rate for the construction industry is higher than the national average in this category for all industries." 10 Tips to Improve Construction Safety Fact #1 - Losing your Load On construction sites people use machines to lift and move all sorts of things on a regular basis. Whether it is lifting wood or metal beams, or you are digging out dirt to prepare to lay a foundation, this is an essential part of most jobs. The vast majority of times this type of activity goes very smoothly and the jobs are completed without incident. The fact is, however, that having loads come loose while in transit is actually a leading cause of injury on construction sites. You need to keep in mind that even if you don't lose the entire load, people can be severely injured from even one thing falling out of a crane or back hoe. With this in mind, people working on site need to know to stay well away from this machinery, and the machine operators need to know to avoid moving items when people are nearby. Fact #2 - Entering and Leaving Heavy Machinery Another safety issue related to working with heavy machinery is related to operators getting on and off of the rigs that they will be working on. While this is something that they of

One of the most common injuries plaguing nearly any industrial business is the eye injury. The human eye is susceptible to damage from a variety of different sources, however, most eye injuries stem from exposure to chemicals, paints, solvents, allergens, sawdust, laboratory materials, etc. However, it is important to remember that nearly ninety percent of all eye injuries are preventable when proper procedures are followed and adequate eye protection is used. The right type of goggles, depending upon the job, can protect the eyes from coming into contact with nearly any eye irritating contaminant. Nonetheless, eye injuries still seem to occur and businesses need to be ready and prepared just in case an eye injury does happen. One of the best ways to provide immediate support to an injured eye is to utilize the help of an eyewash station. Guidelines for Eyewash Stations When it comes to the safety standards related to primary eyewash stations, OSHA sets the overall requirements. However, it is ANSI (American National Standards Institute) that is the entity who provides the necessary guidelines that employers must follow regarding the design, type, performance, location, and details specific to any eyewash station. Even though the ANSI z358.1-2009 covers the guidelines for all types of eyewash equipment such as emergency showers, eyewash stations, face washes, and combination units, we are going to focus on guidelines related to eyewash stations. Tips for Compliance with ANSI's Eyewash Standard Every Second Counts! - When an eye injury occurs every second really does count. An eye injury can go from bad to catastrophic in mere seconds if the eye is not properly flushed. ANSI mandates that all eyewash be located just a short 10 second walk from any eye hazard. The path to the eyewash station must well lit and remain clear and free of debris. The eyewash station must also be properly identified with an eyewash station sign. Yes, the Water Does Matter - there

Modern, RESTful APIs are not considered standard, table stakes and expected out of any new project, effort, application, system, service or product. It has become so normal to talk about developer interfaces, developer adoption, application development and innovation in the same breath as APIs that a distinct effort to build APIs for a new product or service seems out of place and abnormal. APIs are the defacto standard of app development. So where do we go from here? We believe that APIs are about to enter the second growth spurt. APIs will evolve from not just interfaces and integration enablers into the rockets that propel enterprises towards innovation and market dominance. Here are three key trajectories that will lead the next API evolution and revolution. Innovation - Starts, and Ends with APIs All modern technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, ChatBots, Analytics, BlockChain etc. begin and end their stories with APIs. APIs are what enables the communication between front-end user interfaces and the backend technology services. All new machine learning capabilities offered out of the big four tech companies have seen the light of day through APIs. Intent & Sentiment extraction, Topics, Categories, Summarization, Image Recognition, Entity Extraction etc. are all capabilities powered by Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing that is ultimately being delivered as APIs to application developers. Similarly, ChatBots are typically designed to get the user entered text, use an intent API to determine intent and then use a service API to respond to the user conversationally or with a service. Clouds - Multi-Cloud, Hybrid Cloud As the big three cloud providers grow their market share and attempt to attract attention, increasingly, enterprises need to think about how they minimize their risk by building in the flexibility to switch their cloud provider if and when they need. In addition, hybrid architectures or a cloud migration

Are you searching for the best paying Google AdSense Alternatives in 2019 to monetize your blog? In this post let us see what are the best alternatives to google ads and how they are useful to us. Before knowing about the Adsense alternatives, let us hear what Google Adsense is and how it is helpful to bloggers.

We all know how irritating it can be to lose something we need. Whether we lose something simple such as a pair of nail clippers or misplace the correct size wrench to fix an immediate automobile problem, when something becomes lost or misplaced it results in a loss of productivity. Instead of using the item to meet its intended purpose, we are scrambling around searching for the item causing a loss in valuable time that could be spent doing other, potentially more important activities. The U.S. Marine Corps understands the value of lost production time and has implemented a specific tool control program to help counteract the occurrence of lost tools(tool control program). How the Tool Control Program Works The U.S. Marine Corps utilize the help of many tools to service varying levels of Navy aircraft, in fact there are more than 100 different service maintenance requirements and each service procedure requires its own set of tools. The sheer amount of tools needed to service the differing Navy aircrafts is mind boggling. However, it order to keep tools organized and easily accessible when needed, a specific tool control program was enacted. The program basically involves the usage of customized tool boxes that contain specific tools. The intent is that each tool has a specific location within a certain toolbox, which allows for a quick inventory check to verify that all tools are present when a maintenance requirement is conducted. Then, once the tools have been used, they are placed back into the correct toolbox and into their exact location for the ease of future use. Most of the toolboxes utilize customized cut foam to safely and efficiently cradle the tools. The goal is to make sure all tools are properly put away when not in use and easily found when needed. Since implementing the tool control program, there has been a significant amount of savings in time, space, and money within the maintenance department of Navy aircraft.

The pertinent use of safety stickers and labels is a must within any industrial work environment. Safety stickers and labels serve many functions, first and foremost, they help to warn or inform employees and visitors of any specific safety concerns. Additionally, they also serve as handy informational reminders from identifying the contents within certain pipes, to showing where recycling may be located, all the way to highlighting the location of a safety eye wash station. Since the need for safety stickers is so important, yet so diverse depending upon the type of business, it may be difficult to locate all the specific stickers and labels needed. One way to easily combat the rising costs of utilizing outside retailers for safety stickers is to simply make your own. Believe it or not, printing your own safety stickers is generally faster, easier, and more cost efficient. Printing Safety Stickers If you've never considered the option of printing your own safety stickers, right now is the time to start. With advances in technology, some label printers are able to efficiently print bright and colorful, commercial grade stickers and labels. One label printing product currently on the market that rivals most others in price, quality, and ease of use is the LabelTac 4 PRO. This printer has proven time and time again to produce high-quality, dependable, colorfast labels that outperform most other safety stickers available on the market, and the best part is they can be printed in-house right from your own office. The LabelTac 4 PRO is capable of creating indoor and outdoor labels that are both weather and fade resistant. Furthermore, the ease of use with the LabelTac 4 PRO is simply impressive to say the least. It is compatible with nearly any Windows-based programs including well-known products such as Microsoft Office, OpenOffice, and Excel. However, even if you don't utilize Windows-based software the LabelTac 4 PRO comes equipped with its own easy-to-use Barte

Introduction It's the end of the day. You get home from work, sit down on your couch, and begin to relax. In this process, you may turn to music as a way to help you relax and forget the stresses of daily life. The best kind of music for this? Classical instrumental music, of course! But there's one small problem: how do you find classical music? After all, classical music isn't as popular as pop, hip hop, and rock, making it semi-difficult to find classical music, especially if your taste involves more obscure pieces. The journey to find such pieces can be difficult, which is why I want to help you by telling you the best sites and streaming services to find-and listen to-classical music. So, without further ado, let's jump right into it! The 5 Best Sites for Classical Music YouTube What kind of list would this be if I neglected to mention one of, if not the most popular website in the world, YouTube. Ever since it's inception in 2005, the site's displayed steady growth, allowing billions of people to find enjoyment and joy on the Internet. And with YouTube being one of the biggest sites in the world, it only makes sense to have a section of the website dedicated to music. This section, aptly named YouTube Music, contains any kind of music for any kind of listener. This includes classic instrumental music. Trust me when I say, there is plenty of classical music for you to listen to, from the most popular composers to the more obscure composers. Spotify Next up, we have Spotify, a titan of the streaming industry. While Spotify doesn't allow the streaming of videos, no service besides Apple Music can compete with its catalog of music, including classical instrumental music. Spotify is especially great for people who like all kinds of genres, and its cheap subscription price gives little reason to not at least consider using the service. As a matter of fact, I think there's a free monthly trial. Wouldn't hurt to give it a spin! Only thing that may give you trou

You have installed Google's Pie software in your Android phone, but since then, you are noticing small issues which has a common theme with Android updates. Android 9 has made significant changes, but unfortunately, not all the adjustments are easy to follow. In this article, we will discuss four Android 9 problems plaguing users. We suggest to follow the best Android website in India for up to date news about Android and available apps. The Smart text selection If a new overview is not working in text selection, then it is the time to troubleshoot. You have to long press at an open space anywhere in your home screen. Select "settings", then "suggestions", move your cursor a little bit down to check whether the overview selection is turned off or not. Turn it on and your problem will vanish. If this trick does not work for you, then go to "settings" and select "languages and input". You need to check whether you have selected English (United States) as your language. If you have selected any other language, then it may be the source of the issue. The current hypothesis is that Google has set limits for this feature and hence, why it works best when in combination with United States English. Steps to activate split screen mode This is a common complaint, but unfortunately, at this point in time, there is no satisfactory solution to this issue. You do not need to get disheartened because there are third-party apps which will fill the void. These apps will make it easier to activate split screen function in your Android 9 device. There are free apps as well as paid which will allow you to initiate the split screen mode in your device. Adjusting the ringer volume If you are facing this issue, don't worry, you have company. Many Android enthusiasts miss old ringer volume adjustment. They wish to get it back and they are looking for different ways to get the same old behavior of the ringer volume. In order to do it hassle-free, you can make us

The first step to mastering a no-makeup look is to change your inner perception of yourself, to accept the way you look, and to show yourself love and appreciation. If you think you are beautiful just the way you are, and accept yourself unconditionally, everyone else will see you and feel the same way about you as you do. And that is when these tricks come in handy, to help you achieve that makeup-free, gorgeous look. Take care of your body to take care of your skin. Eat healthy for glowing skin First things first, you should alter your eating habits and stick to a nutritious diet to achieve healthy skin. Add more fruits and veggies to your meals and include foods rich in Omega-3 fatty acids (such as flax seeds, walnuts, fish, sweet potatoes, etc.) and high in protein (eggs, lentils, chickpeas, beans, chicken, etc.) Drink more water Hydration is very important for the look of your skin and your health in general. If you drink a minimum of 8 glasses of water a day, it will help you flush out toxin from your body, and as a result, you will have blooming skin, plus you will feel better. Try to carry a bottle of water with you all the time to remind yourself to drink more water throughout the day. Also, a good way to stay hydrated and flush out the toxins is to add cucumbers, lemons, zucchini, mint leaves, etc. and make detox water. Be more active Taking up a sport is essential for your physical and mental health. Exercising benefits your skin because it helps your body get rid of toxins through sweat; it improves your blood circulation, increases the amount of oxygen, and provides a boost of endorphins that all affect your skin. Exfoliate, exfoliate, exfoliate Exfoliation is the key to radiant skin, and it should be a vital part of your skincare routine. Give your skin a helping hand to get rid of the dead cells and renew itself with regular exfoliation (twice a week is perfect) because the excess of dead cells can lead to clogged pores, acne, and pimples. Aft

Digital Transformation is tough, even for seasoned technologists. This is because it is a transformation of an organization at its core. Everything from culture, technology, ideation, development, integration, delivery, and support needs to fundamentally shift to be more customer-centric, service driven, automation first and experimental in nature. No wonder that a lot of organizations take a long time and a lot of investment to see ROI from their digital transformations. Here are 5 signs that your digital transformation might be in trouble. Culture mistrusts the core digital transformation team You are spawning new initiatives before completing previous ones Decisions are top down with low accountability at the leaf nodes You tend to focus on technology stacks with little focus on customer value Inter-organization politics stifles cross-organization scenarios Culture mistrusts the core digital transformation team It is almost impossible to make an entire organization aware and participate in digital transformation at the same time. There are exceptions but in our experience, starting out with a core digital transformation team is a much better strategy than otherwise. This team should be enabled to attack a limited set of important and business relevant problems, build cutting-edge solutions and use them as examples to train and evangelize digital transformation strategies to the rest of the organization. However, the more entrenched an organization in the old way of doing things, the harder they might this central team. Resistance can be active and passive such as refusal to share data or provide the relevant context of the problem. An organization that does not set up the early crusaders for success almost always has a much harder time showing value from their digital transformation activities. You are spawning new initiatives before completing previous ones Executing on a digital transformation strategy is much harder than defining the strategy especially fo

One of the key milestones on the Digital Journey starting with a Digital Strategy, Digital Transformation and then sustaining on Digital Innovation is the point where the enterprise reaches a point of data maturity powered by a single, organization wide, consistent version of the truth including the state of the customers and the state of the business and the state of the employees. This point is critical as it becomes the launchpad for several, forward looking initiatives including Artificial Intelligence, ChatBots, Blockchain etc. "Complete" A Complete version of the truth ensures that the following criteria is met: Entity Pivot The key entities that need to be tracked to generate a complete, comprehensive version of the truth are the following Employee Employees, regardless of customer facing or not, need to be understood including where they excel vs. struggle and where their struggle impact the customer experience. Key information about employees that should be tracked is what the employees are working on, how productive they are and how often they introduce delay and errors in business processes. Business Business visibility requires that the enterprise be able to track key metrics such as customer lifetime value, customer attribution, customer acquisition cost and customer satisfaction. In addition, the stage of the customer ranging from prospect to commit to paying customer to abandoned needs to be tracked. In addition, the customer's quality of service and experience needs to be tracked and understood. Customer The most critical of the three is the understanding of the customer. Customer KPIs have a direct impact on and are completely impacted by the Business and Employee KPIs. It is extremely important to understand how customers are searching for, discovering, learning, understanding, using and continuing to use the product and services delivered by the enterprise. In addition, it is important to understand what capabilities drive what kin

When people think about personal protection equipment, they typically think about hard hats, steel toed boots, and safety goggles. One of the most commonly used types of protective gear, however, is fairly normal looking protective apparel. Protective apparel from KleenGuard is used in many industries ranging from medical labs to manufacturing facilities and offers an excellent first line of defense from a wide range of different hazards that are commonly found in the workplace. Look Like Normal Work Clothing or Uniforms The apparel from KleenGuard is designed with safety first in mind, but it is also made to look and feel nice so employees will be happy to wear it. In fact, many people don't even realize that this type of apparel is a form of protective gear that is keeping them safer while at work. Depending on which apparel is chosen, these items can be buttoned up, zipped up, sealed with tape, or slipped right on to allow easy preparation at the start of a shift. Types of Protection KleenGuard makes a full lineup of protective apparel, so looking at each individual item is the best way to learn about what types of protective features it offers. The following, however, are some of the different ways that KleenGuard protective apparel help to keep those who are wearing it safe: Liquid Barrier - The material is made to stop liquids from soaking through and coming in contact with the skin. This is important when working with biological liquids (body fluids, etc.) or when working with chemicals that could cause skin irritation. Particulate Barrier - Stopping particles of materials from getting through the clothing is an important feature. Tiny particles of wood, metal, fiberglass, or other very small materials are kept away from the skin to avoid irritation or other issues. Antistatic - The material resists the buildup of static, and passes the NFPA 99 criteria for this feature. Avoiding static is important in many industries and can be a key safety featur

The Adventure of Reducing Risks and Hazards in the Workplace Whenever starting a new job, it can be difficult to figure out exactly what you should be doing, and how it needs to be done. When I started working at a new facility as a safety manager, I began my first day with a meeting with the facility manager. The meeting was set up so he could tell me what was expected of me in my new role, and provide other details of the job. I was quite surprised when the meeting took less than two minutes, and the only objective I was given was to 'reduce risks and hazards in the workplace.' I asked for some clarification or guidance in what exactly he was looking for, but he simply said that I was hired to improve safety, and he was leaving the task of finding out how to do it in my hands. He gave me a sheet of paper with some information about what resources I had available, including my annual safety budget and told me to get to work right away. I should point out there that I had several years experience as a safety manager at a large company, which is why I was brought in to this new facility. The facility had recently been cited by OSHA for a variety of safety hazards, and there were even some fairly severe injuries that occurred in the previous months. The facility owners made it clear that safety was a priority for them, and they were willing to do whatever it took to pass inspections, and keep the employees safe. Planning My Safety Program While that initial meeting was unique, to say the least, I was also quite excited about the opportunity. It is quite rare that a safety manager is given such flexibility, and I wanted to make sure the manager wouldn't regret that decision. I got to work right away planning my safety improvement program. OSHA Safety Sign Guide I wanted to make some quick changes to help improve safety in the short term, and then also plan out ways to create a culture change within the facility so everyone would be more safety focused. I kne

Many businesses need and even require the use of safety signs to warn employees and customers of potentially hazardous areas. However, the task of finding the right signs to portray the right message, along with finding a reputable company to provide the signs may be more difficult than originally intended. We are here to ease some of that burden with 10 helpful tips for finding the right safety signs to satisfy your business needs. 1. Identify Areas that May Need Safety Signs Before even beginning a search for a safety sign supplier, the first step in the process should be to accurately identify any areas within your facility that may be in need of safety signage. Think of all areas used by employees and/or customers such as aisles, walkways, fork lift zones, hazardous waste areas, potential slippery surface areas, etc. The key here is to identify all the locations that could pose hazardous conditions so proper signage can be created. 2. Pinpoint Potential Safety Hazards. Once certain areas have been designated as potentially hazardous, the next step would be to determine the actual safety hazards in the area that pose risks. An example of this could include an area where liquids are routinely transported. In this case, a spill may be likely which could endanger employees or customers due to the enhanced risk of a slip or fall. 3. Determine the Message to be Conveyed by the Signage Signs are posted everywhere, from "Watch Your Step" signs to "Employees Only" signs. However, for a sign to be truly effective it must convey a clean and clear message that can be understood easily by nearly anyone. For instance, in a work environment that includes welding, safety signs warning of potential arc flashes may be needed. In this case, a sign should be posted instructing anyone who enters to wear proper protective gear, this sign could read "Warning: Arc Flash Zone Proper Protection Required." 4. Consider the Conditions where the Signs will be Located Now

Effective marketing also means effective communication with existing and prospective clients, so every business should make an effort to come up with methods to establish a connection with their clients. If you are operating a business, you must be aware that one great method to achieve this is to come up with excellent signage that will serve as a bridge between your business and your customers. With this, you may want to consider purchasing label maker software that will accommodate of your label printing needs. Why Opt For Label Makers? It is a fact that you can go about and look for commercial label printing if you want to accomplish the branding and labeling needs of your business. However, doing this can lead to higher marketing expenses which would have been reduced if you just depend on label makers. A lot of companies are opting for label makers for many good reasons like the following: They are simple and very convenient to use Very flexible as they can help produce labels of varying sizes Can reduce the business operating cost by a huge percentage Can be used for small and large scale marketing levels Very affordable and comes in different types and designs Depending on the size and output of different labeling and sign printing machines, using a label maker serves as a great way to establish a business without having to spend huge sums on expensive marketing strategies.

The process of pipe labeling is essential to minimize hazards within an industrial work environment. Pipes may contain a variety of different substances such flammable liquids, pressurized liquids, acids, wastes, water, etc. Pipes can extend for miles within industrial work settings and even though some pipes may not contain hazardous substances, it is still imperative to identify the contents within the pipes as well as the directional flow and pressure within the pipes. What is ANSI Color Coding? ANSI or American National Standards Institute is a privately owned, non-profit organization that is involved with creating consensus standards regarding workplace safety. In order to help ensure safety and the proper labeling of pipes, ANSI along with ASME (American Society of Testing and Materials) have developed a color coding system so the contents of pipes can be quickly and easily identified. The newest version of the ANSI Color Coding guide from 2007 features the use of six colors, versus the old version which focused primarily upon the use of four colors. The related hazards and colors are as follows: Hazard Colors Fire Quenching Fluids Red Background with White Lettering Corrosive & Toxic Fluids Orange Background with Black Lettering Flammable Liquids Yellow Background with Black Lettering Combustible Liquids Brown Background with White Lettering Potable, Cooling, Boiler, Water Green Background with White Lettering Compressed Air Blue Background with White Lettering In addition to the above six color codes, ANSI has also identified four other colors that may be utilized at the discretion of the user for other fluids that do not meet the specifications of the above content colors. The other colors are as follows: User Discretion Purple Background with White Lettering User Discretion White Background with Black Lettering User Discretion Gray Background with White Lettering User Discretion Black Background with White Lettering Pipe Label Placement In addition