Addressing Compliance and Regulations in Manufacturing with Digital Signage

Workplace safety is a concern for many employers. It is even more pressing for time-sensitive and labor-intensive industries like manufacturing.

And it doesn’t help to know that 340 million occupational accidents occur annually. 

The research is clear: Traditional methods of disseminating safety information aren’t enough to ensure workplace safety. Here’s where digital is the answer — more specifically, digital signage.

So, how can you employ digital signage to ensure safety compliance at your manufacturing facility? Read ahead to find out.  

The compliance challenge in manufacturing 

The manufacturing sector has stringent rules and regulations to follow — from daily safety protocols to environmental regulatory frameworks. 

The US has federal agencies like the Operational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in place to check that all rules and regulatory standards are met. However, it would take OSHA roughly 40-323 years to vet every job site in the states, which is near impossible.  

So, it’s clear that employers have to be proactive about their workers’ safety and find effective resolutions. The first step is taking note of the manufacturing-related challenges that workers face. These include:

• Exposure to hazardous chemicals due to inadequate handling, storing, and disposal 
• Heavy lifting leads to musculoskeletal disorders and back injuries 
• Noise-induced hearing loss after prolonged exposure to noise without protection
• Slip and falls due to poor housekeeping initiatives 
• Stress and fatigue from long and tiring working hours
• Ergonomic injuries due to long hours 
  
  

Key areas of manufacturing compliance

The manufacturing sector deals with many regulatory frameworks for production. The top ones are: 

• Safety standards to ensure workers are safe and healthy 
• Environmental control to minimize the environmental impact of production activities 
• Quality control and assurance to meet customer expectations 
• Ethical regulations to promote fair and positive working conditions
• Supply chain management to ensure smooth, efficient, and lawful working conditions
• Intellectual property rights to safeguard patents, trademarks, and copyrights
  
  

These are just a few of the key manufacturing compliance regulations. Now, let’s see how digital signage can tackle them.

How does digital signage ensure regulatory frameworks are followed in manufacturing?

1. Provides real-time updates

Time is of the essence in high-risk, fast-paced environments like manufacturing units. That’s why prompt and crystal-clear communication is key.

With digital signage, you can share real-time updates and alerts to keep workers informed and alert. Commonly shared information includes: 

• Project timelines and status 
• Shipping and delivery updates 
• Intellectual property best practices
• Emergency messages that need immediate attention
• Best practices for daily operations and quality control 
  
  

This way, your workers have all the information they need to do their jobs without running around for the right context.

2. Shares safety protocols

Digital signage excels at displaying safety information that captures attention. Research shows dynamic content gains 400X more views than static counterparts, making it more effective.   

Imagine this: A large display with the latest safety guidelines in big, bold text. Add relevant visuals to add more clarity and these displays are unmissable. 

The trick here is to capture your workers’ attention. Once their eyes are on the screen, they’re bound to read the text or watch the videos on display. Here are some useful content to share:

• Standard operating procedures (SOPs) for safety and health compliance in production facilities 
• Best practices to avoid mishaps. For example, broadcasting a reminder for workers to wear ear and eye protection to prevent any injuries 
• Notifications to promote healthier workplace habits like short breaks and stretches 
  
  

3. Enables regular training for upskilling 

Safety protocols are constantly evolving to promote better working conditions. Additionally, governments release new SOPs regularly to ensure that production facilities operate within legal and environmental limits. 

This means your workers must be updated regularly about new protocols and regulations. Additionally, since business and tech are ever-growing, you’ll need to brief them about new tools and features. 

With digital signage, you can streamline training sessions by showcasing training videos, streaming live events, and presenting slides to upskill workers. The L Squared Hub has hundreds of built-in tools like Live Streaming and Content on Demand to help you conduct training sessions easily with just a few clicks!

You can also set up a strong feedback loop from employees through interactive screens. They can suggest topics they’d like to get training on, tips for improving operations, and more.

4. Boosts employee engagement

Research suggests that four out of ten employees feel like their work gets unnoticed, causing them to feel demotivated and even look for roles elsewhere. That’s why letting your workers know you value them is important.

To build a healthy work culture, it’s about getting the details right. This means acknowledging that transparent communication and effective rejuvenation are just as important as productivity and efficiency. 

Here’s where breakroom TVs and interactive signs can help. You can set up dynamic displays in break rooms to energize your staff in their downtime with light entertainment and motivational content. 

Some display ideas include:

• Sports channels, weather updates, or new reports to build healthy socialization 
• Motivational content to boost employee morale 
• Awards like “Employee of the Month” or work milestones for recognition  
• Messages from leadership to build healthy connections
• Emergency message alerts related to manufacturing rules and regulations 
  
  

5. Improves business decision-making

With digital signage, you can facilitate faster and more accurate decision-making with BI dashboards. Think of all your complex data in easy-to-consume visuals! That’s how efficient your displays can get.

You can share:

• Kanban boards to track shipments and operations
• Project goals and estimates in boardrooms 
• Market trends and values
• Client expectations and requests, and more!
  
  

All this is to boost operational efficiency at your manufacturing unit.

Best practices 

Now, we’re on the same page about the role of digital signage in ensuring compliance in manufacturing. Let’s discuss some best practices to make sure you’re making the most of it.

• Accessibility: Ensure your signs are visible and accessible by workers of various abilities. Things to factor in include text visibility, audio quality, height of the displays, and range of motion for interactive screens.
• Scalability: Choose a solution that can grow with your business — both hardware and software.
• Keep your content fresh: Your digital signs will work only when they’re up to date. Be sure to update your screens with the latest safety and operational efficiency regulations. 
  
  

Get manufacturing compliance right with L Squared 

L Squared is a turnkey digital signage solution on a mission to transform business communications. Its robust cloud-based CMS, the L Squared Hub, makes managing your display network as easy as a few clicks. 

It lets you share targeted content to specific screens on your display — so all your different teams get contextual messaging on their screens. You can streamline communication, improve decisioning, and build a healthy workplace — all with one solution for your manufacturing facility. 

Got any questions? Contact our team at info@LSquared.com for answers!