Signaling is a supplementary measure and not a substitute for technical and organizational measures for collective protection. It is applicable when it has not been possible to eliminate the risks or reduce them sufficiently through the implementation of preventive measures.
It represents a useful measure to warn of dangers, reinforce and remember the rules of behavior and obligations in the face of dangerous conditions and provoke a reaction that favors safe behavior in the organization. You can choose the All Signs there as well.
Criteria for the use of signage
When defining and establishing signage in the company, it is necessary to take into account the following points:
Official Master in Prevention
The presence of the signage does not eliminate the risk. What it does is inform, warn, prohibit, or compel. The risk does not disappear, but it makes workers aware of its existence and act accordingly.
The signage does not exclude the obligation of the employer to use preventive measures. The fact that a sign warns of a danger does not eliminate the obligation of the employer to adopt measures to reduce or eliminate that risk.
Signage does not exclude the employer’s obligation to train workers on the risks of their functions and working conditions. This training should include notions about the signs used, their meaning, as well as the general and specific behaviors that should be adopted based on these signs.
Signaling principles
The basic principles so that the signage complies as best as possible with the purpose for which it was conceived are:
- Attract the attention of those involved in the danger.
- Warn of dangers well in advance.
- Be clear and unique in interpretation.
- Have the necessary means to comply with it.
- Connection of all signals to each other.
- Agree with the legal aspects of normalization.
- Conservation and renewal of signs.
Steps to follow to mark workplaces
The steps to follow to implement a signage system in the company are set out below:
Study and exhaust the possibilities of eliminating risk situations, through the use of collective protection techniques or other organizational measures.
Evaluate to what extent a certain type of signage meets the applicable requirements in terms of:
- Level of control and efficiency provided by the signal in the event of a risk situation.
- That the selected signage is adequate for the risks it must protect against, without giving rise to misleading situations.
- Prevent signage from interfering with the production process.
- Select and acquire the most suitable signals.
- Before placing the signs and, in order to optimize their preventive action, the following aspects related to their effective use should be recorded in writing:
- Inform workers of new signs posted at workplaces.
- Train workers so that they know how to interpret and act correctly.
- Install the signaling system or the new signals, in case of adding to the existing ones.
- Users who travel daily would know what to do or where to go, but tourists or visitors would be totally lost, as would anyone trying to get somewhere for the first time.
Some intelligent applications dedicated to helping the most disoriented have already been developed, but in a big city, with massive flows of people and various modes of transport, a system based only on these would become impossible to handle. This same situation occurs when signage is poor or simply not accessible to everyone.
