Nick Michaelson, CEO of Silver Fox, offers answers to the questions of ‘why’, ‘what to’ and ‘how to’ label cables.
Any parent will tell you that it can get wearing when children, at a certain age, become obsessed with using the word ‘why?’ By the time children reach school age, they’ve learned to curb this innocent, unbridled natural curiosity – possibly to their detriment in terms of their ultimate educational advancement but definitely to their advantage if they want to be socially acceptable.
It’s not surprising that we carry this curiosity inhibitor into adulthood. Refraining from constant naive questioning and probing enables us to live—mostly peaceably—in our communities although it also helps to give rise to, among other things, the ‘elephant in the room’ syndrome.
Within the world of cable labeling, the question that never seems to be asked is ‘why is it important to label cables and wires?’ Yet, if we don’t know why we’re labeling these things, how do we know that we’re labeling them in the most appropriate way?
The key purpose of using cable labels is to make it as easy as possible to know the location of the other end of the cable. In addition, labeling a cable can tell you its length, type and so on and/or it can tell you what is connected to each end of it. Most of the time you might not need to know this information, or you could find it out another way but, on the occasions when you can’t—or don’t want to—find this information via other means, that label is invaluable in saving you both time and money.
If a cable has the same information on a label at both of its ends, you know that, having found one end, you can also find the other. Reading the label saves you having to trace where the cable actually goes (often amid a mass of other cables). This can be extremely beneficial—in terms of time, trouble and, thus, money—when engineers are playing their part in maintaining and even expanding today’s information technology dominated society.
Of course, labeling cables is not just for the benefit of engineers.
Importantly, if cables are mislabeled or not labelled at all, it’s likely to result in high rates of fatigue, stress and irritation for anyone who comes into contact with them—even possibly creating more immediately life-threatening health and safety issues.
Over the last 30 years or so, everyone has become more aware of the daily risks they encounter, and increasingly, steps have been taken to identify and limit the health and safety risks we face as consumers, citizens and workers. Labelling a cable effectively provides important safety information for anyone who comes into contact with that cable. It certainly helps to inform that person’s decision making with regards to the cable—although it’s important to note that this involves label design issues, since if it’s possible to design labels that reveal vital information, it’s also possible to design labels that do the opposite.
Cable labels, along with the software and hardware to produce them are intended to make engineers’ and others’ jobs easier—and safer. Developed, over many years, in conjunction with practicing engineers, these labels are designed to help users reduce trouble, improve safety and save time and money.
Silver Fox
www.silverfox.co.uk
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