6 Important tagging solutions and why your processes need them

Facilities in the workplace are often full of electrical, mechanical, and even chemical sources that can be prone to spontaneous dangers. Dangers that may cause serious harm or death if not carefully managed. Therefore, it is vital to identify these sources and take precautionary measures to ensure the safety of you and your colleagues at all times.

One way to take control of your organisation’s safety is through the use of safety tagging solutions.

Safety tagging solutions offer critical industries a way to prevent accidents in hazardous, or potentially hazardous situations. In short, tags shall be used to identify and mark hazards until they are no longer a threat to the workforce.

In this article, we explore the different types of safety tagging solutions available, what they do, and why your processes need them.

1. Lockout Tags

Machinery is a big part of many organisations’ day-to-day processes – and with machinery, comes the need for routine maintenance work. Whether it be a pump used to circulate drilling mud in an oil rig, or a conveyor belt used to transport goods in a production line, there comes a time where equipment needs to be shut down.

This is where Lockout Tags come in. Lockout Tags are applied to machinery, letting others know the machinery is out of use and being serviced. This prevents anyone from powering on the machine, which could cause harm to the maintenance team, or themselves if the equipment is faulty.

At REGALTAGS®, our Locked Open / Closed Tags are ideal in this situation. They provide a clear visual marker to indicate the machines status, reducing the risk of incidents and danger to the workforce.

2. Inspection Tags

While machinery needs routine maintenance to ensure safety, regular inspections are important too. Inspections reduce the chance of equipment failure in the workplace, and aim to spot any potential problems before they cause a threat.

However, knowing what has and has not been done, as well as what the results are for each machine is vital for safety - you need to keep track of your inspections.

Fortunately, Inspection Tags makes this easy. Made to identify the piece of equipment, location of inspection, dates, and personnel responsible for each check-up, Inspection Tags allow you to record everything needed.

An example of inspection tags in action would be our highly visual EXTAGS® which make for easy identification of the inspection status, and are typically used for ATEX Inspections.

Manufactured from Prism material with UV and freeze protection, these tags can be used to reliably identify equipment inspections all year round, even in the harshest environments.

3. Process Management Tags

Keeping on top of several critical procedures in a hazardous workplace can seem high-risk. But with some careful process management, you can ensure that staff and machinery are all operating safely and efficiently.

When it comes to keeping staff safe and machinery secure, communication is key. It’s absolutely vital that team members are aware of which stages of the process have already been safely carried out. That’s where multi-part Process Management Tags come in.

Multi-part tags, such as Flange Tags and Hire Tags, will communicate a highly visual record of the current status of the inspection or management process.

Flange Tags offer a perforated tear-off section, which ensures that no key steps are missed during your flange management processes. A Flange Tag is attached at the beginning of a project, then as each stage of the process has been completed, a section is peeled off. This is an essential part when it comes to achieving 100% leak-free start-ups.

Hire Tags work in a similar way to Flange Tags; they help you to identify clearly and quickly what stage the equipment is in the inspection process. With Hire Tags, you can reassure clients that every piece of equipment is safe and ready to be used. As an additional measure of safety, you’ll have full traceability back to responsible personnel.

4. Isolation Tags

In work environments that can be vulnerable to potential hazards, it’s important that your workforce is informed of safety measures and aware of individual responsibility.

Isolation Tags are a type of status tagging system, which allows control over mechanical and electrical isolation procedures. They provide instant feedback of the current operation status and are used to prevent any accidental or unintentional activating of the system. 

Isolation Tags make this easy for your team, as they place the responsibility onto a named individual and encourage awareness and compliance. They eliminate downtime by facilitating effective communication amongst your team. 

At REGALTAGS®, our Printable Isolation Tags allow you do to this easily and efficiently. Manufactured from our tough Weiz material, they are highly UV resistant to prevent any fading in sunlight and tear resistant to prevent them becoming detached from the application. These can be customised to suit your current ISSoW software system such as enablon or eVision and can be printed using most desktop printers such as Zebra.

5. Ladder & Scaffold Inspection Tags

Falls from a height are one of the most common causes of fatal workplace injuries (25%). Likewise, according to the Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS) scaffolding incidents result in more than 4,500 injuries and 60 deaths each year. This tells us that without proper safety solutions, ladders and scaffolding can be a real danger to the workforce.

Ladder and Scaffold Inspection Tags communicate to employees which ladders and scaffolding have been examined, which are safe to use, and which are not.

Ladder and scaffolding violations can also result in heavy fines. So, having the proof of inspections via safety tags not only protects the workforce, but your organisation in a financial sense too.

At REGALTAGS®, our Scaffold Inspection Tags ensure no steps are missed during the construction and erection of scaffolding, whilst providing a visual reminder of the importance of safety compliance. Featuring multiple fixing points and designed specifically for durability, these tags can be securely fastened in any scenario, without the worry of lost information.

6. Identification Tags

When it comes to creating a safe work environment, having critical information readily available to your team is so important.

Identification Tags are often relied on to carry information that is vital to the safety of the workforce. In extreme environments, you can’t afford to compromise on the durability of your Identification Tags.

That’s why many industries choose REGALTAGS® Metal Tags to display their critical information. These tags are often used where data needs to be displayed for the lifetime of the equipment.

Our durable Metal Tags are designed for offshore use, and are more than sufficient in standing up to the extremes of UV exposure and other extreme environments.

Ensure compliance with safety tagging solutions

Taking control of your organisation’s safety processes can be done easily and efficiently through the use of safety tagging solutions.

At REGALTAGS®, we help brands working in the harshest environments worldwide through customised safety tagging solutions.

If you’re looking for a solution that you can rely on to help with your critical operations, we can help. Contact our team of experienced advisors today - we’re just a call or click away.