Projected Solutions & Motion Control

Hello everybody. I am Brian Jaszewski. Beside me is Brett Polito. Today we are here to talk about projected solutions in motion control. We're going to quickly run through some slides and then we will open the floor for questions. But a little bit about your presenters to start off: my name is Brian Jaszewski. I am the global product manager here at Brady. I oversee floor and area marking solutions. We'll get into the slides in a little bit, but I have been here for three years overseeing everything from floor tape to projectors, photoluminescent solutions, and anything to help convey messages on the floor or help people egress a building safely.

Hey everyone, I'm Brett Polito. I'm the application engineer here in the visual workplace safety department at Brady. I'm in the midst of year 13 here at Brady. All my degree and background are in occupational health and safety. I started my career here at Brady on the field service team. So, the first 10 or so years of my time here at Brady was spent out in the field working on things like lockout, tagout, and confined space, from writing procedures to doing trainings and all those sort of fun types of things. Then the past two years, I moved over to our product management team to work with some of our visual workplace folks. Since for about the past two years, I've been doing just about everything projected line and signs. So, you're in great hands today because that's what we're going to be talking about.

Here's kind of our agenda. First, Brian is going to run us through the floor and area marking overview. Kind of how do these new projected solutions fit with the traditional floor and area marking offerings? Then, we'll dive briefly into the safety piece, right? Because that's why we're all here. We want to make sure our workforce gets home safe at the end of the night. Then kind of the meat and potatoes of this presentation is going to be the integrations and controls. How do things like motion sensors or magnetic switches—how are they able to interact with your workforce and communicate important safety messages to them? And then finally, we will review and get to any questions you may have. So, I'm going to turn over the first part now to Brian.

Really good, Brett. Thank you very much. We are going to start off the presentation here with a quick poll question. Will Ortiz, our esteemed marketing colleague, is going to throw that up on the screen. So he is giving me a thumbs up. I'm assuming that means it's running. So there should be a question up there indicating a little bit about floor marking projectors. Give us your honest info, honest input, and we will circle back to that later. There will be a section for question and answer at the end too. So, any questions, throw them up in the chat. Will is here critiquing, overseeing, and he is going to field us those at the end of the presentation.

Brett has been here 13 years. I ran a plant for about six years. So, Brett was the guy that I would talk to, that subject matter expert to help me make sure my plant was in line and functioning efficiently and safely. And when I came here to Brady, I was really excited to oversee floor and area marking, because that was one of the biggest challenges I had on the production side. Really what we've been able to do as an industry over the last three years is move floor marking from a simple commodity solution into much more of a technical strategy for each and every facility. That means every single area, every single customer, every single process has its own unique set of requirements and circumstances. We are able to service those now as a marketing industry through a mix of products. Right? We're talking about projected solutions today. These are ideal for challenging surfaces and unique environments. Right? Wet, oily, dusty—things that are really dirty. We can ensure 100% integrity of those markings over a longer period of time, a good piece of longevity, and we can service a really wide area, a wide section of temperatures with those projected solutions with the current market products.

But then we can also move to tape in these hybrid marking solutions. I know we're going to talk about projectors today, but tape is a very integral piece of the solution because not every area, not every environment needs a projector. Tape is great for heavy foot traffic, light industrial traffic, and there's a myriad of different styles of tape out there. Different styles, different types of temperature allowances, thicknesses, materials—minimal downtime is required to put this down. We then also within this technical strategy have paint, right? If you are 100% set on your facility, we can paint it. I've seen some really good paint strategies in my time in industry and it really depends on how known your process is. But then again, 5S shapes, and we're seeing 5S shapes and these types of functional markings making their way into projected solutions now. It's really exciting because it shows that 5S mentality, that 5S theory, is continuing its push even into these new technological times. We are seeing really cool shapes made out of projected lines. We're seeing drop zones made out of different shapes within projectors. So it just shows you a technical strategy, a hybrid solution utilizing all of these different marketing tools to convey the safety and production message that we need to our team members.

I have a really cool example here of a facility install that Brett was able to scope out and get product into. What we have here is a mix of tape, two different styles of tape, and projected solutions. So, if you'll look at that pillar, it says tape right there. Again, within that short radius of that pillar, we're using just a standard style of tape there. No need to go big, no need to go expensive. If you have a forklift that is getting that close to that pillar, we probably have different issues in the facility. We need to address training, things of that nature. So, therefore, it shouldn't get that much traffic; you don't need a super expensive solution there. In the lower right-hand corner, you're seeing some heavy impact tapes. That is for non-lateral movement of fork trucks, other types of heavy loaded styles of equipment. In those particular instances, we do need a heavier style of material, a different style of floor-facing adhesive to absorb that impact, that traction, and dissipate it across that installation effectively without destroying the marking. Again, the reason we're putting all of these solutions on the ground is to mark and convey messages.

Then if we're looking at the two projected solutions, we have a projected stop sign in the upper right-hand corner and we have a projected line in the lower left-hand corner. That's where we're getting our maximum amount of vehicular traffic with a differing amount of kind of energy application to those areas. So in those areas we would not generally expect tape or paint to stick. So, we are going with a projected solution to ensure longevity of those necessary safety communication messages. These projected lines and signs, they're up in the ceiling. They're projecting down onto the floor so that our fork drivers, our people that are moving, do not ever have to take their eyes off of where they are driving on the floor. So they do not ever have to worry about potentially missing someone or something because they are deviating their scope of vision.

Then if we are looking at projected lines, just a few quick specs on the projected lines. Again, as I mentioned, operating temperatures—I love projectors because they can go down to about minus 22 Fahrenheit. I think that's right around minus 30C. Great for food and bev applications. These are sealed units. We'll get into a little bit about fans and lack of fans and lack of motors in a bit. But they can go all the way up to around 140 degrees Fahrenheit. So, we have a wide service temperature range on those. Mounting heights, focusable lines—yeah, these are generally straight above wherever the application is going to be. That gives us the most optimum image on the floor. We generally like to see mounting heights between about 10–12 feet and up to about 40 feet. There's so many things we can do within that range or even higher to make sure that we're putting down the optimal image, and we can focus these lines depending on where we are falling within that installation range. There's a number of different power levels, wattages if you will, that allow us to meet different ambient light levels. That power level and the lens option allow us to really work with different lengths of lines and intensities that we're trying to convey.

Projected lines in the industry right now—the best images on lines are put out by blue, green, yellow, and red lines. There's a couple of other options, but they're not quite as crystal clear as some of these lines we're liking to see. If you're looking for an option to start with, I will tell you that blue, yellow, and green project the best. They project the most vividly. The width of the lines and the length of the lines are all controlled by how high we are mounting those signs. So if you're down in that 10 to 12-foot range, the majority of lines are going to be about 2 and a half, 3 inches wide. As you get higher, it's going to get wider and longer. So within that scope, we can match to a lot of different dimensions.

Then when we're talking about projected signs, again, very similar operating temperatures of about minus 22 Fahrenheit, minus 30C up to about 140 degrees. Similar mounting styles. You want to mount it as close to directly above the desired image location as possible. Gives us the most clean image, the most focusable image. Within signs, there's a number of different power levels and a number of different lens options. Actually, it allows us to play more with the environment and what we're trying to portray, how we're trying to communicate that message. We've even seen some people put these outside for dusk to dawn applications, sign communication, messaging, communications. But that lens—you really need to think of that like a flashlight almost. We can take that set amount of light being projected and by focusing in the lens, making it a tighter lens, we can focus that energy, make it a potentially brighter sign. By widening that lens, widening that image out, we can make it a bigger image, but to that, it also loses intensity. So there's a couple of sweet spots that the industry can work through to make sure that you are getting the optimal image and message communication.

Now I think one of the most important things to talk about here is to ensure your projector has interchangeable images. They come on image discs. It's called a gobo. Gobo is an industry term that stands for "go before optic." And what that does is it allows us to take a stop sign one day and, if we move that sign to another area in the facility, make it into a yield sign or a forklift sign. So this is definitely an option within the industry, something to very much remember. One of the things as we're looking at projectors in general is to really understand the LEDs. Generally good for about 30 to 50,000 hours. Some have been out there over 70,000 hours we know of. What that means is about four to six years with a top side of about eight years of usage time. Nice part about some of these projectors is they do have replaceable LEDs, replaceable units, replaceable driver units, excuse me. So, be sure as you're looking for projectors, ask these questions so you're not having to discard the entire unit when the time is up.

Another very important thing to consider is thermal management. There are two schools: there's passive cooling and active cooling. Passive cooling is large metal construction, large robust heat sinks. The other style, active cooling, is smaller construction, but with fans, motors, things of that nature. Obviously, you don't want fans and motors if you're in a damp environment. If you're in a dirty or dusty environment, that will take the dust, that will take the moisture into the internals of the projector unit, potentially corroding it or clogging it. I'm an old plant guy, like I mentioned; that ingestion will cause premature failure in your unit. So depending on your environment, you really want to focus on some of these things. And then again, I did mention the versatility of those different units, power levels, lenses. They allow us to really focus on that hybrid marking solution and put the correct solution into the correct environment to portray the most accurate message. And with that, I'm going to turn it back over to Brett here for a piece on regulations, compliance, and the actual controls.

Hey folks, so thanks Brian. Excellent job. Obviously why we're all here today is the safety aspect, right? And so there are some safety rules and regulations supporting conveying these messages to our workforce. Now, what are some of our largest hazards? I just picked an easy one out of the gate. I know we've got folks in here that are probably from a number of different industries, but one of the things that we probably all have in common, no matter the industry that you're from, is forklift traffic or PIT traffic within your facility. And one of the things that projectors, along with some of our motion control systems, can do is they're really great at traffic control. So, I toss this one up here generally just to get folks thinking because a lot of times people ask, how do we control our forklifts? How do we control our pedestrians? How do we control any of the other motorized vehicles, right, that may be driving around your facility? And communicating these types of warning messages to your workforce is actually, as we probably already know, it's required by OSHA, right? So, safety instruction signs that are relative to your employee safety measures, we need to be communicating that to our folks out in the field. And again, as Brian just got done mentioning, it is really easy to do with projectors because you are able to tailor that message to your workforce, much like the 10 by 14-inch aluminum signs that you probably have all over your facility now. Similar to those, there's stock options, there's custom options. No matter the message you need to get to your workforce, you're able to do that with projectors.

So, with that being said, let's jump in and start talking about, well, we have our projector, but how do we control some of these projectors? And more importantly, why would we want to do that? Well, there's kind of two sides of things. One, there's the safety benefits, right? As I just got done talking about the traditional 10x14 aluminum sign that you put up on your wall and it's been there since 1983—well, guess what? First couple weeks that sign was up, man, I bet it was really, really effective. Everyone saw it, read it, understood it, and realized kind of that safety instruction. However, we do know that sign blindness exists. And what sign blindness is is that if a sign's been on a wall for years and years, ultimately over time, that sign just kind of blends in with the wall and you're no longer actively kind of communicating those messages to your workforce in the way that you would want to. So, the nice thing about these integrations and controls is that we're able to create these almost interactive safety zones that are getting these messages to your employees in potentially a new way. And then from there, there obviously are going to be hardware benefits as well. So, everything from extended equipment lifespan, right? So, if your unit's not going to be on all day, great. You're extending the lifespan of that unit, as well as obviously anything that plugs into the wall is going to be some type of energy cost. And so again, using some of the integrations and controls can help lower your long-term cost as well.

So if you've decided that controlling your projector is right for you, how do we do that? Right? We've got, specifically here at Brady, right? And there's tons of different manufacturers of this stuff, guys. So, what I'm about to go into isn't going to be true for all of the different suppliers on Earth. So, make sure that if we're going through any of these solutions and one sticks out to you as something, wow, I could really use that in my facility here, make sure that the supplier you work with is able to support your choice of integration or control. As you can see on the bottom, we can start with something real simple all the way to real complex. You're seeing the motion sensor on the end there. You're thinking, "Well, goodness, I have something that looks like that in my facility." Yeah. If you have any type of rollup door, your basic type of motion sensor, microwave motion sensor that's able to detect movement—perfect, very simple way to trigger those projectors on and off. And again, very popular for things like traffic control. Next is the presence sensor. So, it's going to have some of those same features of that microwave motion sensor, but it's also going to have some infrared presence sensing ability. So, I often get the question, well, Brett, what happens if I'm tracking a forklift's motion, but it stops? Are we still able to pick up that motion or pick up that forklift? Absolutely. With the presence sensor, motion or no motion, it can sense an object's there.

From there, magnetic switches. These are really popular with doors, gates, overhead doors, things of that nature. Light curtains, right? So, anytime you're going to be breaking a barrier, you can use these to signal to turn on a light. And then finally, probably our most complex is connecting straight to a PLC. So, if you don't know what a PLC is, it's almost like a rugged, very simple industrial computer that's like a series of "if-then" statements. So if something happens in an automated work cell, then this other result switches into gear, right? So it's just a very simple and rugged computer. But from there to dive in more to those motion sensors, right? They're best for controlling traffic in your busy intersections, blind corners. They do have the ability to detect multiple types of traffic. So whether you're trying to detect forklifts, pedestrians, or both, they're able to do that. And along with picking up the type of traffic, they're able to sense the direction of traffic as well. So you can even get into the nitty-gritty of, hey, I want to pick up only forklifts that are driving towards my sensor and nothing away from it. Or we want to pick up pedestrians that are walking away from the sensor, right, but not towards it. Again with the install height on these, your range of where that sensor is going to pick up is going to be kind of based on your installation height, but typically we can get about a 20 by 20-foot range to pick those either forklifts or pedestrians up. Now, when it says normally open or normally closed settings, that means these motion sensors can either take a projector that is off and when it senses motion, turn that projector on, or it can do the opposite, right? It can take a projector that is on and when it senses motion, it can turn it off. It can also be wired in parallel or a series. So we can have one motion sensor connected to multiple and controlling multiple projectors, or we can have multiple motion sensors connected to one singular projector. So I know that's a lot of words. So let's dive into how this would actually work.

So as we can see on the screen, we have two different but similar systems here working together at a blind corner. So, in this particular instance, this customer had forklift traffic having to travel into this dry ingredient storage room and then travel back out of it. But, as you can see, in order for them to do so, they are crossing a pedestrian walkway, which of course can be extremely dangerous, especially when they are coming out of this dry ingredient storage room. They're not able to see who is or isn't in that walkway. So, here again, we have two different systems. The first one is highlighted in orange. Okay. It utilizes two motion sensors outside of that dry ingredient storage room that are going to be able to pick up both pedestrian and forklift traffic. In the event that either of these motion sensors are triggered, it is going to turn on that sign within the dry ingredient storage room. So when that forklift goes to pull out of that dry ingredient storage room, they are being actively warned of pedestrians in their pathway. Now in the same sense, you see the blue motion sensor and the blue signs. This one motion sensor within the dry ingredient storage room is controlling both forklift warning signs in those pedestrian pathways. Okay? So that means when that forklift then pulls up to those doors to exit that dry ingredient storage room, it is going to warn any pedestrians in these pathways that the forklift is present. Now in this particular facility, pedestrians have the right-of-way. So that forklift would know to wait to exit that dry ingredient storage room until the sign turned off. Okay. And now you're thinking to yourself, goodness, this sounds kind of familiar. Yeah, you probably have potentially some of these older solutions in place, but ultimately things like mirrors, etc.—this is really what these are designed to replace. So, if you have any of these mirrors up in your facility, that could be a good indicator to think to yourself, hey, is this an opportunity to implement some motion control projectors?

Okay, from there, we're going to jump on to the motion and presence sensors. So again, this device is going to have very very similar features to the first device, right? Because it is able to pick up all the same sort of things: vehicles, pedestrians, right? And when that vehicle or pedestrian enters into its field of view, it's using that microwave motion sensor. However, if that forklift or person stops, okay, and stops moving within that area, how do we make sure that a sensor still picks it up? Well, it uses this active infrared array to essentially pick that object up, sense its motion, and it will then keep those signs or lines on for the duration that that vehicle or person's presence is sensed. Then once that vehicle or person starts moving again out of that zone, then and only then will that motion sensor turn off.

So we have another example and this one was kind of interesting, right? We had a customer that had a bunch of parts that were being cooked in a curing oven. Okay. And ultimately when those parts came out of the oven, they were presumably very very hot. Okay. And before a forklift would come by and pick those parts up and take them to a different area of the facility, they would typically let those parts cool from anywhere to about 60 to 120 minutes. Okay? But obviously when it came out of that oven on the track, there's going to be a hazard present to anyone within that area as to any of those extremely hot parts, burns, etc. So what they did was they set up a presence sensor over the oven itself. So when the track brought those pieces of equipment out of that oven, the microwave motion sensor picked up that motion. And then once it stayed put for the next 90 or so minutes, that infrared piece kept sensing that that piece was still there and kept the lines and signs on. Now, in this case, this one motion sensor was able to control five different projectors. We had the three red lines creating that box around the outside of those hot parts and then two sign units that were giving direct instruction to their employees saying "Hot, Do Not Touch." And then from there, once the forklift would come and pick those parts up and take them away to another area of the facility, that presence sensor would no longer sense the presence of those parts and the lights would turn off until the next time the parts came out of the oven.

Okay, next up we have magnetic switches. Okay, so these are great for a couple of areas. The first one that you're seeing photos of here is any of those overhead mezzanines, especially ones where you're storing equipment, gates coming up open, closed, etc. In the event that we do, and especially in some of these older buildings, right, that have these mezzanines, when that gate comes up, you are exposing anyone walking beneath it to potentially an unsecured load, right? So, a very very popular use case with these magnetic switches is going to be when these doors pop open, it is going to turn that sign on and give the proper warning to the folks below. Also very popular, not related to mezzanine gates or doors, is that if you have any like employee guard rails or walkways out there with any of the employee access gates, you know, using magnetic switches on those gates to turn on things like stop signs for forklifts, right? When that employee is crossing a busy intersection or crosswalk style signs, right, to again help that employee cross that busy intersection. Very very popular in that space. So now I do have a video here for you. Will, do you have it or should I pull it out? Give me. So we do have a video here for you. This is right here in our facility in our product studio right here. Those that magnetic switch in action when opening. Perfect. And then at the very end of that video, the other thing you'll see, and that we haven't really talked about here today yet, is that any of these projectors also have the ability to connect to your normal light switch. So, the one thing we haven't talked about, but I will toss in: any of these projectors are able to be connected to buttons, switches, timers, etc. We typically don't spend a whole lot of time talking about those because in the safety realm, if you have to remember to turn on your warning, that's usually not a great start. Ideally, these things are happening automatically, right? Because if you walk into a space and say, "Oh goodness, I need to remember to flip the switch to turn on my projected walkway," probably not an ideal solution. Okay, but they are out there. So, if it's right for your facility, certainly available.

Next up, light curtains. So, this again was another interesting one. We had a drive-thru crane bay where basically we had some flatbed tractor trailers pulling through this bay and they were either unloading or loading materials. However, in order to access that truck and the crane and make sure everything lined up properly at this facility, they needed those trucks to stop in a very specific spot. So, what they did is they connected a sign projector to two light curtains, right? And as that truck would pull through that bay, once it hit the point where it wanted them to stop, it projected a huge stop sign on the floor. So that truck was communicated; they knew to stop the truck. Right from there, they were able to access either whether it be loading or unloading through that drive-through bay to get all the equipment either on or off that device. Then the employees would then disengage the light curtain, the stop sign would go away and that driver would then know it's safe to pull out of that bay.

Okay. Finally, PLC integration. So this is really specific to I know our Brady specific projectors. So using some of our adapters, specifically the one you see here, you can really connect these projectors to just about anything. Okay? Anything that's going to send the DC input voltage of up to 10 volts, usually about 1 to 10 volts. You can connect our projectors to—we've seen very popular things like packaging lines, robotic cells, conveyor systems. The abilities here are kind of endless. One interesting one that we had that I found particularly interesting that I wouldn't have thought of was a car wash. Right. So, at the very end of the car wash, basically when it got to a certain point of that wash—I think it was when the blow dryers were coming on—they would display a projected sign across the customer's windshield basically thanking them for their business. But again, that is an example of that PLC integration. So, when that car got to a certain point along that wash, it triggered the light to come on and it was able to display the message. The next one is probably a little more applicable to us in the industrial setting. What we have here is a robotic work cell. And I really like this image because we can see some of the more traditional safety markings and warnings within the photo. Right down here at the bottom left-hand corner, we do have some what looks like some red and white striped safety tape. Again, probably trying to deny or denominate this area or block it off from some type of traffic, right? It's not telling us what exactly. There is also another sign here. We've got some caution tape. Maybe they're taping something off. Restricted area, right? So, we know there's some warnings involved. But when, right? When is that hazard present? Because as we look at it now, doesn't look like a whole ton of hazards are present. And two, we don't even know what that hazard might be. So again, this is another opportunity where a projected solution—you're going to be able to interact with your workforce, but also provide those direct and specific messages.

Okay, with that, I'm going to turn it back over to Brian. He's going to do some review and then we'll get to any questions you may have about projectors or any of the integrations or controls we talked about today.

Perfect. Thanks, Brett. I hope after seeing all that everyone realizes how far floor marking, area marking, message communication has really come over the past handful of years. Projected signs and lines have been around since the early 2010s. But we've really only seen such an onset in the industrial side here in the last handful of years and even more recently with some of the motion and sensor controls. So with that again I'm going to talk about a strategic approach to hybrid advantage. The core philosophy here is putting the right products in the right place for the right messaging. And you've seen through incorporation of motion controls—be it the microwave projectors all the way up to light curtains and PLCs—that allows the messaging to be controlled for the point of entry, the interaction that you're looking for. We like to ask a lot around facilities: who has right-of-way, what are we trying to communicate and when? And while everyone should definitely consider projectors for as many uses as possible, it's not always budgetarily realistic to do that. So, there's also physical tape, adhesive signs, things of that nature that need to be incorporated into that full solution. And that does allow us to futureproof our strategy by having that flexibility that things like tapes and projectors provide to us from a manufacturing perspective. It does allow us to rapidly reconfigure layouts. It allows us to adjust to workflow changes or potential bottlenecks we see. And it's really easy to update for work cell changes and things of that nature. It is essentially providing a layered and immersive safety environment to all of our team members and allows us to drive maximum awareness at the point of interaction.

And this doesn't really only just apply to floor and area marking. As much as Brett and I like to tote that because that's where we work for the entire day, it does also apply this immersive environment to overall product solutions. We like to start with floor and area tape. But this complete solution that we have from a visual workplace perspective is inherent and integrated here at Brady. Allows us to start with floor tape, ask those questions, but then move up to area marking signs. Look at what's in a pipe or a valve and label that effectively and efficiently so there's no concerns, no issues. We also have a various lockout and electrical marking, different programs, different strategies, different operations like Link 360 to help sustain your safety push all the way to absorbents, spill controls, and printers for that full marking solution. And the big takeaway here from the presentation hopefully is not just about floor and area marketing, but really find a solution provider that can help you with your entire program. Look for a resource. Look for someone that can answer your questions and give you the best industry practices to utilize and put forth into your environment to keep your team members safe.

And to help augment that, to really help that communication, Brady does offer continuing webinars, and just a couple of the future webinars that we have out there—I'm going to turn it over to Will. He'll speak to those. But we do have roughly one every month. Yeah. So in the next few months here we are going to have our next three that'll be first one about proper tagging. So often overlooked, tagging is a critical component of hazard communication. This session is going to cover the correct application of inspection tags, valve tags, and scaffolding tags to maintain compliance and prevent accidents caused by unknown equipment status. The next one is going to be surviving the elements: GHS compliance and marine labels. So a technical webinar, but this is going to focus on chemical safety compliance specifically, the globally harmonized system or GHS and the BS5609 standard for marine immersion, which is critical for chemicals being transported by sea. And then in September we will have our blueprint for lean success: mastering 5S visual controls. So, a place for everything and everything in its place. The 5S methodology is the foundation of a lean workplace, but the system only works if it's visible. So, those will be available to register. We'll have the one for July going out in our follow-up email that you can register for. And then just be on the lookout for any additional posts on our LinkedIn or via email for the next ones to follow. And as always, those are every month, Wednesdays at 2 p.m. So, we are excited to have you join us then. Thanks, Will. Perfect.

Will, was anyone listening? Any questions? Will, there were people actually listening? Oh, good deal. Perfect. So, we do have a first question. So, our facility has skylights and very bright overhead lighting. Will these projections be visible in a well-lit warehouse? Jim, you want me to take this one? Yeah, sure. Very, very common question. Very common. Yeah. So, great question, guys. You want to get out there and ideally measure the ambient light within your facility. So, it can vary from different areas, as you mentioned, whether you have skylights, open bay doors, you may get a much different light reading in one area than the other. And just because it's bright in that area doesn't immediately rule out projectors, but it may kind of limit our selection, right? So, as Brian was talking about at the start of the presentation, we have a whole ton of different wattage and lens options. And when we get into some of those really bright environments, we technically use some of the higher wattage units, the more power, as well as some of the narrower lenses that really can focus some of that light and even in those bright environments, give you the bright, vibrant safety messaging that you're expecting from a projected solution. So, long story short, Will, yes. If you have some of those real bright environments, doesn't immediately rule you out. Now, if you do have those skylights, make sure you're not taking your light readings at night. Let's be conscious of that. Same with doctors as well. It's a great point. Thank you, Brian.

So we have a follow-up question from Will of HP Refrigerations. Does OSHA recognize projected lines and signs for safety compliance in the same way they recognize physical tape and paint? Yes, that answer is yes. OSHA—and you've got a little bit of education here—but OSHA requires a facility to communicate through messaging and then train to those markings. So again, as long as you have these messages in place, whatever you choose, and again, I lean back to the hybrid marketing solution, it can be a mix of these different solutions. We just need to make sure employees understand and that we are training to that messaging and that messaging is as consistent as reasonable. Great job. Oh, thank you. I appreciate it.

And then we have a question from Ben Starkey of Starkey Shipping and Cooling. If we rearrange our warehouse layout for a seasonal shift, how difficult is it to move or change the projected markings? I can do it. I mean, the nice thing about these solutions, guys, is we aren't really—you're not tied down to one specific location right now. So long as you do have—you need the power up there, right? All of these projectors typically, especially the ones from us, are all going to come with a 110-volt plug. Okay? Double-check with your supplier to make sure it comes with a plug. But in the event that you do have that power, these are very easy to move around your facility. And so when you do have those seasonal changes, you absolutely can move those markings to best fit your current layout. And given the lifespan on this stuff is anywhere from three to seven years, you probably are going to have some facility redesign within that time potentially. So yeah, that's the nice thing. There's not going to be a whole ton of downtime. You don't got to repaint. You don't have to tear up all your existing markings. You just use a qualified person in a lift to go retrieve those units and reinstall them in the new locations.

Yeah, we actually see a lot of this coming out of warehousing and kind of down into some of the newer construction builds, work cells, things that are changing on a regular basis. Folks literally just take these signs down, put them in a new place in the facility, and plug them in. And we actually had one customer not that long ago that wasn't taking the projector down per se, but what they were doing is they were changing that glass slide in that sign projector to communicate a different safety messaging every month. So that's kind of another way to look at this as well. Brett mentioned sign blindness. This is a good way to combat that and kind of keep a more dynamic almost library of safety signage and communication available for use as needed. And the other thing I will say, Brian, too, is that these projectors, when you're talking about hanging them in the ceiling, they really aren't that heavy. I think our largest unit, which is the 300-watt sign projector, the big boy, that thing only weighs like 38 pounds. That's not too bad. So, you know, they aren't really as difficult to hang as you might think.

Cool. All right, we have a question from Kevin Green of Green Global. Does Brady offer custom gobos? Absolutely. You know, that's one of the biggest requests we get very candidly. So, we have a very comprehensive portfolio of standardized images because let's be honest, at the end of the day, we're all pretty much trying to communicate 90 to 95% of the same messages to our team members and to our production facilities. However, there are unique circumstances in certain areas where we have to communicate a different message. And I think your one of your case studies with the hot item coming out of the kiln where we use stock line projectors to cordon off that area, but then also custom signage saying, "Oh my goodness, hot, don't touch"—like that's a great use of custom. And again, you need to be cautious as we're reviewing custom because you don't want every sign to be so different you have to train to every single sign. But there are definite use cases for custom signages in the right and particular locations. Yeah, especially since, you know, when you look into kind of the—if we want to get real nerdy into the safety world here—when we talk about really what's important on the signage, we can kind of jump to the ANSI Z535 standard, which I won't bore you with all of it right now, but long story short, it says it's very into both pictograms and direct messaging, which is an upgrade from the original OSHA style signage, which was actually based off of railroads. So anytime your newest technology is being based off railroads in the year 2026, it's potentially an opportunity to improve. So anything with direct messaging, pictograms—those are huge and very popular within the custom gobo space.

Perfect. On that we have a question from Richard. He says, "I may have missed this, but do you have projections that go above an entry door for required PPE?" So that would be a custom image. Actually we may even have a stock one. We have some stock people. Okay. But regardless, that would be a projected sign on the floor. And again, I have seen ones out there that literally just communicate the words with a caution out there. I have seen other ones that have different pieces of image, different pieces of PPE as needed to kind of show the people what they need. So, definitely, yes, it exists out there. Again, sometimes can be customized to your facility for a little better. Just be cautious of that overcustomization piece because that just presents a potential training fault if we get too granular.

Okay. We have a question from an Azoui Brousard. He says, "Any options available to project safety signs in dual languages?" Yes, absolutely. Yeah, we have stock options I believe in French and Spanish, even. And then if you've got other things, again, the custom option is great as well. So, dual language, again, much like I mentioned a few times, just about anything that's possible with your standard 10 by 14 aluminum sign, we can do in this projector setting. So yeah, absolutely. Bilingual we can do.

Okay. We can answer this live, maybe we follow up later, but Steve would like to know, "When a demonstration of projectors is requested, why is the demo unit that the Brady rep would bring not a quote-unquote real unit? It can be hard to imagine sometimes how the finished look would look like." Yep. No, that's actually a fair question. So I'm going to take a step back from a global perspective there and mention that when we as Brady first started this process, the industry was not doing a lot of demos, period. So what we have done, mixed with this hybrid solution provider mantra, is we are putting units out into the field that are full-size demo units. So while sometimes you might not get exactly the lens, because there are so many different iterations of power-to-lens combos that it's very very difficult to ensure that a 300-watt is going out with a 45-degree lens or something along those metrics, what we can do is put a 300-watt with the closest lens into your region for that demo. Go ahead. The other thing they could be referencing is all of our sellers have a nice floor and area marking kit. So, when they're on site, they all have a little mini 20-watt unit that isn't for sale. It's just to demonstrate the technology to people who may not be familiar with projected lines and signs. So from there we do have the ability, as Brian mentioned, we have a large fleet of projectors out there in the field to match up to the customer's specific environment. So I think in that question, Will, they might have just been referencing how each one of our sellers has those little 20-watts.

That's fair too. So, if you are out there and you are looking for a demo or looking for someone to come out to your facility, reach out to your local Brady Territory Manager, because they will be able to come on site with that aforementioned 20-watt demo unit, right? Maybe someone has never seen a projector before or they haven't seen one like ours, right? Because our units are historically different than some of the more entertainment models that are on the market. So, that could be it as well. Yeah, that's a really good point. Our units are built for industrial environments. We're all metal. We're no moving parts. Again, old plant guy: I don't want any failures. Then it's not communicating the message. It's not doing the job I purchased it for. The vast majority of the competition—taking a step back and putting on my Brady shirt here—the vast majority is just repurposed entertainment projectors being pressed into service. And we unfortunately see that pretty regularly. That is why we here at Brady have decided to have so many different iterations of power levels with so many different iterations of lenses to help us project the proper safety image in what someone earlier mentioned as a relatively uncontrolled environment. Meaning we, Brett and I sitting here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, don't know what that person in Salt Lake City, Utah has in their warehouse. But we have to have compliments and components so we can build the right unit to get it out there.

So again, to circle all the way back to that question, if you have a particular need, reach out to your Brady TM, talk to them. We can schedule whatever style of interaction and sample program we need to understand your business, to get out there, present our mixed media marketing solutions, our hybrid marketing solutions, get that full package, help you communicate the right safety messaging to your employees, your team members to make sure at the end of the day, everybody's going home safe and you have the right style of markings for your environment. Perfect. Thanks, Brian. And Will, I know we're a little over on time here. Our contact information, folks, is right down here at the bottom. If you have any further questions and maybe we didn't get to your question today, we're sorry. Feel free to reach out to us and we will gladly respond and engage with you on whatever your question related to projectors, integrations, controls, motion sensors, floor and area marking. Feel free to reach out, and if there's a way we can help you, we will. Cool. Thanks everybody. Appreciate your time today. Thank you.