Science: Light from Paint

Pastel shades are the latest fashion for factory machines. After a year’s experience with painting machinery in contrasting shades, paint-making Du Pont claims that “without exception users report increases in production (as much as 15% in many cases), with greater operating efficiency, less fatigue, fewer accidents.

Deceptively simple but the fruit of many scientific tests, the system, which is merchandised as Three Dimensional Seeing, consists of painting the central mass of a machine a special grey which Du Pont calls “Horizon,” then picking out the working surfaces in “spotlight buff” or “spotlight green.” The idea is to increase the worker’s alert observance of what he is doing by making it effortless for him to see, in soft—not glaring—contrast, the object he is working on and the cutting or shaping parts of the machine.

On the basis of extensive war-plant research, especially in aircraft factories, Du Pont also recommends soft light-reflecting colors for factory floors so that light will “bounce up” and assist in working on the under surfaces of such jobs as aircraft wings. By suitable changes in the colors of machines, floors, walls and ceilings, increases of as much as 100% in shop illumination have been achieved without increasing the candle power of the illuminants.