In the world of manufacturing, efficiency and productivity often take center stage. However, there’s one element that must always be prioritized above all
else: employee safety. Recognizing that June is National Safety Month, AutomationDirect is dedicating much of this issue of NOTEBOOK to addressing the issues
that impact safety in the manufacturing workplace — from culture to the tools and techniques that ensure machine operatorsdon’t get injured on the job. Our two feature articles tackle these issues head on. In our cover story, “Building a Safety Component Fortress Around Equipment,” Larry Reynolds, the product manager for safety and identification products at AutomationDirect, explores the technology used to detect hazardous conditions and bring equipment to a known safe state. That starts with a risk assessment to understand the safety needs and culminates in the deployment of specific safety controls and components.
Our second feature article was written by Travis Morris, AutomationDirect’s safety administrator, and takes a deep dive into the safety culture. Tapping into personal experience, Morris explains why safety is the foundation of a productive environment and a successful business. “At AutomationDirect, we understand that establishing a safety-aware workforce requires more than just hanging “safetyfirst” motivational posters on factory walls and breakrooms. A true safety culture must go much further than slogans. Leadership, supervisory management, and factory floor workers must own their respective responsibilities for safe operations — and performance metrics and rewards must reinforce their accountabilities,” Morris writes. In addition, cybersecurity is an area that can have an impact on safety. If there’s a security breach on a control system, it could lead to an abrupt shutdown which, depending on the environment, could create a catastrophic event. Tim Wheeler, cybersecurity manager for industrial products at AutomationDirect, covers cybersecurity basics in his Technical Brief on page 20, outlining standards and regulations, physical security, network management, etc. Because establishing a cybersecure foundation does impact the safety of the workforce.
But wait, there’s more… While safety is a focus in this May 2025 issue, there is more to explore in the following pages. From another technical brief on control panel fabrication to a customer case study on updating the human machine interface (HMI) on the pump controls at a wastewater treatment facility. And then there is a student spotlight on engineering the blue economy (otherwise known as the marine environment). To develop young talent to support this field, Monterey Peninsula College— via a grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation—has established a program called the Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) Center. MATE promotes marine engineering by inspiring and challenging students to learn and creatively apply STEM skills for solving real-world problems. This student team, called the WhaleTech team, needed to develop a well-controlled ROV with an extensible gripper and turned to AutomationDirect in the development of this underwater ROV project. Turn to page 4 to learn more on this interesting STEM educational program — and find out if the WhaleTech team won the competition!
We hope you enjoy the latest issue of NOTEBOOK while learning about the technologies that make a difference in all aspects of manufacturing. As always, we
welcome your feedback and thoughts on what you’d like us to cover in the next issue.
Stay safe.
Stephanie Neil