Visual communication is all around us, from the traffic lights on our morning commute, to the ‘open’ sign on the door of our favourite café to integral workplace health & safety signs.
Clear visual signage keeps employees safe in the workplace and is required by law under The Health and Safety (Safety Signs and Signals) Regulations 1996. Visual signs can include directional markings across factory floors and warehouses to aid workplace flow and highlight personal safety, to the clear labelling of equipment/machinery, chemical, solvents and acids.
The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) stresses the importance of universal clear, legible signage through the following colours:
- Red safety signs signal danger and tend to be in the shape of a thick red circle with a black icon in the middle, with another red line through it. (Under ISO 7010 safety prescriptions and COSHH symbols for hazardous substances)
- Green denotes emergency exits or first-aid services and have a white icon on a green background.
- Yellow indicates hazards and cautionary action for the user, such as high voltage, danger of death or trip hazards and is yellow with a black icon. (Required by the Dangerous Substances (Notification and Marking of Sites) Regulation 1990)
- Blue safety signs indicate mandatory signs such as keeping a fire door shut, wearing protective clothing or placing machine guards in position and are blue circle with a white background.
These signs can be found across many industries from food and beverage, manufacturing, construction, agricultural, energy and many more and are the linchpins of compliant health & safety. They let employees know about correct PPE, equipment usage restrictions, warn about arc flashes in high-voltage areas, through to the handling of hazardous materials and usually fall into four categories: prohibition, warning, mandatory and emergency.
Though many companies are aware of the importance of visual communication and adhere to the H&S guidelines, the label material quality might sometimes be an afterthought, “This can be detrimental and cause more long-term problems. Health & Safety is more than red, green, blue and yellow colours and rectangle, circle and square shapes, labels need to be clear, concise and durable.”
“Certainly, it is imperative that workers also do not become blasé through ‘sign blindness’ and continue to notice clear, visual communication.”
“Our professional label printers create durable labels for unlimited technical applications across many industries.”
“Our Rebo SMS R1 was the result of meticulous R&D over ten years, we poured blood, sweat and tears into this cutting-edge technology. We wanted to produce in-house, DIY, sign and label production technology to suit the rigorous demands of many industries, with user-friendly input, built-in cutting facility that was capable of printing any shape on vinyl or polyester for longevity.”
“Our labels are weather-tested, in various climatic conditions, so rest assured that your labels will stand the test of time. There’s nothing worse than labels peeling off, due to poor quality and in the realm of H&S, durable labels that go the distance are key,” explained Clinton Church: Sales & Marketing Manager for Export at Rebo B.V.
The industry sign and label printing market is heavily dominated by American and Japanese big players and yet Rebo B.V is a European SME offering unparalleled cutting-edge label printing.
“Our clients are eclectic: from food industry sticky labels on ovens and cutting machines, labels on refurbished Fork Lift Trucks (FLT), to ambulances and many more. The Health & Safety directive is huge across all UK applications and what we can offer is the ability to print premiere quality labels in-house at the touch of a button. Our technology is designed with flawless simplicity and our labels offer peace of mind: clear, concise, bright colour resolution and durable,” added Clinton.
The Dutch company Rebo B.V. is at the forefront of industrial printing ergonomics and with an ever-increasing network, now has well-established distribution across the UK, Europe, Asia and the Middle-East. Sales & Marketing Manager, Clinton has worked in the industry for forty years, bringing expertise and intuitive inside knowledge to the role.
Rebo technology can create industrial labels and signs across the following sectors and much more:
- Mechanical engineering/Body construction/Production: Rating plates with CE marking, UL-certified stickers, CE marking of steel structures, rating plates and installation cards and vehicle construction plates.
- Professional identification/Health & safety and equipment rental: Heavy duty identification, fraud proof identification, traceable asset ID labels, product and machine ID labels, COVID prevention/social distance labelling and floor stickers, general instruction and warning stickers, medical device identification (MDR) and flight case labels & AV identification.
- Maintenance testing & inspection: Lock-out/tag-out tags, flange tags, revision tags, outdoor storage and extreme conditions inspection & calibration labels, inspection labels.
- Datacom & Electrical Engineering – Audio & Visual: Wire wraps, cable tags, shrink tubes and cable sleeves, flag labels and switchgear and panel building.
- Warehouses, Logistics and Transport: Multilevel location labels (multicolour), multilevel location labels (one colour), removable and repositionable, kanban and shelf stickers, and container labels (ISO 6346)
- Chemistry-Process Plants: Pipe marking (according to ISO 20560-1), and pipe markers in single colours.
The NiceLabel Software enables in-house designs for industrial labels and with an impressive graphical library depicting over 10,000 industrial symbols, operators can easily design labels or add logos, pictograms, drawings or data bases externally.
“Our new Rebo SMS R1 is a revolution in industrial label printing technology, with the latest advanced touchscreen technology, offering precision-printing at 300DPI. This in-house sign and label production technology is ideally suited across a range of industries and with the current push towards the circular economy Rebo is adding recyclable materials and consciously sourcing less harmful substrates.
The new innovation is capable of fast in-house product labelling, using a wide range of 14 sharp colours and amazingly, in any shape you desire. As a fully-functional desktop product and with excellent USB/Network connectivity, you can say goodbye to outdated, cumbersome machinery. It is compatible with almost all everyday software, including design software like Adobe/CAD or Rebo recommended label software, such as NiceLabel Software,” concluded Clinton.
Rebo B.V. will be at the Commercial Vehicle Show:
23rd-25th April 2024, NEC Birmingham.
Find out how to maximise your H&S label printing today, check out the website below or ask for an on-site demonstration.
T +31 35 601 69 41
clinton@rebo.nl
https://www.rebo.nl/en