Demand Driven Material Requirements Planning (DDMRP) as a planning and control approach combines the strengths from traditional MRP, lean, six sigma and the theory of constraint (TOC). The core of DDMRP is to create and protect the flow of relevant information and materials by visibility and clear signals. Green, yellow and red are used in DDMRP as color coding to signalize when a situation is good, ok and give a warning when for example an inventory position has a clear risk of stockout. This type of color-coded zones does not need to be exclusively devoted to the buffers utilized in DDMRP, they could potentially also be beneficial for other planning and control approaches. Taking inspiration from the color-coded zones in DDMRP, this article investigates how the color coding can be adjusted and utilized for safety buffers in general, independent of the planning and control approach behind. How the color coding could be utilized for safety stock, safety lead time and safety capacity is proposed. This is sought to also open possibilities for facilitated evaluation of buffer size and adjustments with an adaptive approach.