Workshop Visual Management Supplies Move from Ad Hoc Buying to Standardised Kitting

Visual management has been promoted in Chinese manufacturing for years, yet the quality of implementation varies enormously. In a well-run workshop you can see at a glance where the aisles, material zones, reject areas, fire equipment and responsible persons are. In a poorly run one, you find floor tape worn white, signage on the wall that no longer matches the layout, and boards showing data from three months ago. The root cause is often not management capability but materials: visual management supplies have long been bought piecemeal, whoever needs something orders something, so specifications, colours and weathering grades never match and the whole system cannot be maintained. Over the past two years, folding these supplies into a standardised kit list has become a clear trend in shop-floor management.

1. Four layers of visual supplies, each with its own technical requirements

Treating all visual supplies as one category is where control breaks down. By function they divide into four layers: the floor layer, marking aisles, work zones, storage areas and no-entry areas; the equipment layer, indicating machine status, pipe media direction and operating warnings; the material layer, distinguishing material status, batch, released and pending inspection; and the information layer, meaning boards, signs and responsibility cards that carry data and ownership. Each layer faces a different environment. The floor layer takes forklift traffic and washdown. The equipment layer lives with oil and vibration. The material layer is replaced and wiped frequently. The information layer must resist fading while remaining easy to update.

Selection parameters must therefore be set per layer. The floor layer is judged on abrasion resistance and adhesion strength; the equipment layer on oil and temperature resistance; the material layer on clean removability without residue; the information layer on print durability and ease of revision. Using one tape for both floor marking and machine labelling is the most common error at this stage.

2. Floor marking: tape, paint or preformed marking tape

There are three mainstream approaches with clear boundaries. PVC warning tape installs fastest and can be re-routed at will, suiting flexible lines whose layout changes often, but its wear life depends heavily on floor roughness and on bare concrete may last only a third to a half as long as on a smooth epoxy floor. Floor paint bonds strongly and resists traffic, fitting permanent aisles, but re-routing requires grinding it off and production waits for curing. Preformed marking tape sits between the two: factory-formed, accurate in width and radius, able to form corners, arrows and text, and more abrasion resistant than ordinary tape once applied, which suits high-precision aisle and zone boundaries.

Whatever the method, surface preparation is decisive. Oil, dust or laitance will defeat any marking. The correct sequence is to degrease, dry thoroughly, abrade or prime if necessary, then apply with pressure and allow full curing time. To judge whether tape will hold on an epoxy floor, run a simple peel test: if the tape lifts the floor coating, the coating's own adhesion is already failing and should be repaired rather than covered with more tape. Line width should match recognition distance: aisle lines are commonly 50 to 100 millimetres, zone boundaries 50 millimetres, while no-entry and fire zones need wider red-yellow diagonal striping or solid colour blocks for distance recognition.

3. Safety signage: correct symbols and durability both matter

The core of safety signage is the correctness of the graphical symbol. Domestic safety signs should follow GB 2894, Safety Signs and Guidelines for Use, and GB/T 2893.1 on safety colours and safety signs, using standard pictograms with the fixed pairing of four safety colours: red for prohibition and fire protection, yellow for warning, blue for mandatory action, and green for safe condition and escape. Common site problems are self-designed icons, mixed colour meanings, and stacking several signs at one location, which reduces recognition rather than improving it.

Durability must be matched to the environment. Ordinary PVC or acrylic is adequate in dry indoor areas. Beside oily equipment that is wiped frequently, solvent-resistant inks and lamination are needed. Outdoor and semi-outdoor locations require UV resistance, or the sign visibly fades within six months. Switchgear and piping may also carry flammability requirements. Retro-reflective marking for forklift routes and night access measurably improves recognition distance at low illuminance, but reflective film grades differ, and engineering grade and high-intensity grade do not cost or perform the same; choose against actual lighting conditions.

4. Boards and labels: whether the system can be maintained long term

The value of information-layer materials is not unit price but how cheaply content can be replaced. A board whose content cannot be changed is a one-off investment and becomes decoration the moment the data goes stale. Prioritise replaceable structures: magnetic panels, insert card holders, write-on laminate and modular zoned panels that cut update time to minutes. Size must match viewing distance. Characters need to be at least 30 millimetres high to be read at three metres, and over 100 millimetres at ten metres; a board with characters too small transmits nothing on a shop floor.

Labels follow the same logic. Equipment status labels work best as a four-colour system of running, standby, repair and out of service, with colours unified plant-wide and not conflicting with safety colour meanings. Material status labels must map one-to-one to the status fields in the warehouse system, avoiding situations where the label says released while the system says pending inspection. Responsibility cards and inspection sheet slots should share one specification so lines can interchange them and avoid duplicate purchasing.

5. Three practical steps to a standardised kit

The first step is a colour code document. Fix the plant-wide colour set, its meanings, the corresponding pictograms and the permitted materials into a single executable reference sheet, and apply it to every new project and retrofit. The second is to add visual supplies to the MRO item list with defined specification, weathering grade, annual usage and safety stock, so purchasing replenishes against a list rather than buying ad hoc. This keeps specifications consistent and earns volume pricing. The third is a revision and inspection routine: any layout change must simultaneously update floor markings, equipment labels and boards, visual condition becomes a routine inspection item, and worn or expired items are replaced directly from the list.

Layer	Typical items	Key parameters	Common failures
Floor	Warning tape, floor paint, preformed tape	Abrasion grade, adhesion, surface prep	Edge lifting, worn white
Equipment	Pipe media labels, status tags, warning stickers	Oil, temperature, flame and reflectivity grade	Oil ingress, fading and peeling
Material	Status labels, batch cards, location tags	Clean removal, mapping to system fields	Residue, mismatch with system
Information	Boards, responsibility cards, sheet slots	Replaceable structure, character height	Stale content, characters too small

• Specify per layer: floor for abrasion, equipment for oil and heat, material for clean removal, information for easy revision.
• Surface preparation decides marking life; degrease and dry before debating tape versus paint.
• Use standard pictograms with the fixed four-colour convention instead of designing your own icons.
• Choose replaceable board structures and derive character height from viewing distance.
• Write visual supplies into the MRO list with safety stock to keep consistency over time.

6. Trend: from single-item purchasing to kit lists

In purchasing behaviour, visual supplies are shifting from item-by-item price comparison to kit lists. The reason is practical: when a plant manages dozens of tape colours, a dozen sign specifications and several card holder sizes, the administrative cost of comparing each item exceeds the price difference, and the shop-floor confusion caused by inconsistent specifications costs more still. Delivering against a kit list that fixes the colour code, specifications, stock and revision rules maintains site consistency at lower long-term cost, and is a concrete way for MRO suppliers to move from selling materials to delivering standards.

For a factory, visual management is not a one-off fit-out but a daily routine that needs continuous maintenance. Choose the right supplies, keep specifications identical and replenish on time, and the system maintains itself. Do it the other way, with a different tape brand and a different colour code each replenishment, and even the best shop-floor plan degrades back to the starting point within six months. Chilok Industrial applies the same kit-list and colour-consistency approach in MRO non-production supply programmes, helping manufacturers keep workshop visual systems stable over the long term.