Future Legends of the Fall (Duerrisms for July 31st)
Chris Duerr is KHQA's Sports Director. Greetings everybody and welcome to this first (of many) Duerrisms columns for the 2010-2011 school year. We are brought to you, as always, by our good friends at ADVANCE Physical Therapy. My long vacation sabbatical is over. The batteries are refreshed.

Industrial facility managers would have a truly excruciating time maintaining safety and organization in the workplace if floor marking materials did not exist. Forklifts would crash into each other on a daily basis. Unsuspecting workers would trespass into restricted areas and possibly get very badly hurt. Chaos and clutter would be the order of the day, and nothing productive would ever get done. It's hard to overemphasize the critical role that things like floor tape, cautionary signs and other similar devices play in making sure that every warehouse and factory out there runs like clockwork. Of these objects, one that does not get a lot of time in the spotlight, but is nonetheless most helpful in many situations, is the adhesive footprint. Adhesive footprints provide an interesting, even fanciful alternative to paint, cheap floor tape, and even marking materials of superior grade due to their flexibility, ease of application and use, and the fact that they can do most of what the other stuff can do without using up so much space, or product.

It isn't hard to install adhesive footprints in any building. All you have to do is chart out the paths in advance for the benefit of the workers, so that they will be aware of where they can walk to get around the facility. If you can set them out as pedestrian lanes so that they do not accidentally get run over by forklifts, so much the better. Once you've plotted out the courses, simply peel away the cover from the adhesive layer of the footprints, and lay them down as per your plan. Some brands of footprints even come with an adhesive tape measure, which should make things much easier for you to align the footprints and keep them in a relatively straight line. What makes things better is the build of these adhesive footprints, which are crafted from durable PVC, and can handle even moderate traffic from industrial facilities. Of course, being footprints, one would not expect them to be victims of pallet dragging or pressure from the wheels of passing forklifts, but it is comforting to know that they can withstand the occasional transgression. Thus, the walkway that you lay down could be around for years without having to be replaced. When the time comes to remove them, however, in the interest of changing the floor pattern arrangement, they can also be taken off the floor with relative ease, and will not leave loads of unsightly residue on the ground. This flexibility is greatly appreciated by managers and operators everywhere.

Adhesive footprints are built to be installed on flat, smooth surfaces, so you should clear a floor of dirt and debris, and scrape away minor imperfections if you can for the best results. Cleaning a floor benefits the other types of floor markings as well, so it serves a dual purpose. Now, if you want to lay them down on carpets, don't expect them to last very long, but if you only need them as a promotional gimmick or to facilitate a function for a short period of time, then you could do a lot worse than to use adhesive footprints.

Lara Hill writes about industrial floor markings that increase safety and organization in the workplace. To learn more about industrial floor marking and adhesive footprints, visit http://www.stop-painting.com. You will learn why it pays to stop painting!