Warehouses have a lot of traffic to deal with. Whether it’s pedestrian traffic or forklift traffic, it is important to keep the warehouse floor organized and workers and pedestrians safe with a traffic pattern. There are several ways to accomplish this with floor marking, and our favorite tactics are below.
- Lanes: A major contributor to workplace injuries and fatalities is forklift collisions. A solution is to have a clearly marked traffic routes and lanes for pedestrians and vehicles to follow. Yellow floor tape is the recommended option for creating these traffic patterns.
- Emergency routes: Another use for floor markings is marking emergency routes using directional arrows and photoluminescent (glow-in-the-dark) lines to direct pedestrian traffic to emergency exits. This will easily allow both visitors and workers to navigate out of your facility with no training.
- Traffic signs: Just like the traffic signs on the road, you can use floor signs to communicate the same messages to vehicles in your workplace. Stop signs for instance, come in a floor sign option to indicate where forklift operators need to stop before proceeding. Another option is a yield sign on the floor and there are a number to choose from including YIELD: Forklift Crossing, YIELD: Pedestrian Crossing, YIELD: Heavy Traffic, and more.
- Parking spots: If there are a number of forklifts or other industrial vehicles in the workplace, a facility can benefit from floor tape parking spots. Having a designated spot for each forklift or industrial vehicle will ensure operators know exactly where to park the vehicle while creating a safe spot for the vehicle itself.
- Hazard alerts: Hazards should be marked clearly so they can be seen from a distance. Forklift operators can face many obstacles when driving around a warehouse floor and hazard striped tape placed around dangerous areas and hazardous equipment can be very helpful for drivers.
- Aisle marking: While lanes are great for segmenting open areas, forklifts do regularly drive up and down warehouse aisles placing things on shelves, taking items off shelves, and moving them around the facility. Industrial floor marking tape can be placed at the end of the aisle and in front of shelves to ensure forklift drivers won’t cross into dangerous territory and knock the shelving over.
- Inventory areas: Forklifts are often navigating the facility moving large quantities of inventory or a heavy load of pallets. Ensure operators can find where they can drop their load by clearly lining out areas for inventory with floor marking tape.
Using floor marking tapes for warehouse traffic not only improves safety, but also improves efficiency. If any accident occurs as a result with a forklift or powered industrial vehicle, it will result in a work stoppage and could result in a worker having to take time away from their job until they are healed. Keep pedestrians, forklift operators, and industrial drivers safe with a floor marking strategy.
Additional Resources
- Floor Marking for Forklift Traffic– creativesafetysupply.com
- Floor Marking for Warehouse Traffic– forkliftsafety101.com
- Floor Marking Tape Applications– floormarkingtape.org
- Floor Marking Colors for the Workplace– facilityfloortape.com
- Floor Markings for Safety– safetyvisuals.com
- The Importance of Bollards in Industrial Environments– bollardpostcovers.com
- Industrial Floor Tape vs. Industrial Floor Paint– infographicsdirectory.org
- Rack Labeling Supplies– safetylabelprinters.com
- The Basics of Ammonia Pipe Marking– pipemarking.net