Cable labeling plays a central role in any cable management system. More than a simple organizational tool, which it very much is, cable labeling is a means to properly document a company’s electrical or IT network. It is a form of visual communication that offers comprehensive identification of the cable system. It also ensures compliance with quality assurance standards, aids in troubleshooting, solving or detecting disruptions to infrastructure, streamlines access to a system for maintenance and repair, facilitates easy connectivity when adding or changing out equipment or hardware to a network, and so on. Whether it’s a storefront, an office, a warehouse, or any type of production environment, cable management and marking is essential to that workplace.
Safety
It may be cliché, but poor cable management practices are not only disruptive to work environments, but an accident continually lurking in the shadows, waiting to happen. Next to overexertion injuries, tripping accidents, such as that caused by unorganized cables and wires, is the second most common cause of injury in the workplace—to employees, visitors and customers alike. The liability related issues are self-explanatory; suffice it to say that any of these issues can set a company back.
Besides such injuries, an entire infrastructure can be rendered inoperable for minutes, hours, and it may even be for days if cables are disconnected or severed. For example, cables abruptly yanked from the wall or the port it’s connected to can be easily damaged or result in malfunction. If the cabling is abruptly disconnected from devices, equipment, or machines, especially those in which the company has a substantial investment in, it may damage or cause those devices to malfunction. And if the cable does not free itself when tripped over it could pull and smash whatever it is connected to—laptop, cabinet, robotic device—into the floor.
Organization
From another perspective, because the management of cabling and wiring is a complex process, system and network engineers rely on cable management and marking to organize hundreds of network cables that may extend for just as many miles. That system is further connected to an array of power outlets, servers, network switches, equipment and devices. Effective management and cable labeling of that system is vital to ensure a clean, safe, fully functioning work environment.
The type of cable organization requires choosing the right cable management and marking system. M.M. Newman Corporation’s Heli-Tube® spiral cut plastic wrap offers a practical approach in organizing systems and applications. Heli-Tube® comes in your choice of high-quality polyethylene, nylon or PTFE material. It is not only a flexible solution in cable organization and labeling, but the protective material is chemically inert, abrasion-resistant, and performs in a wide temperature range.
Labeling
Heli-Tube® is ideal for color-coding a cable management system, too. The spirally cut cable wrap comes in multiple brightly colored options—orange, yellow, pink, along with many other colors—to enable a color-coding cable marking system that provides an effective labeling option without adding layers of complexity for the cable management systems. Color coding also offers easy visual communication in manufacturing facilities, warehouses, and other types of industrial environments.
In conjunction with color-coding, other methods of labeling can be employed, such as simple wrap-around labeling, marker tape, cable stickers, identification tags, heat shrink labels, and even UV markers are all choices to consider for wire and cable labeling. Along with color-coding, cable labeling provides facilities with many benefits that do more than allay safety and organizational concerns, they also increase efficiency, eliminate waste, and improve maintenance. Regardless of the work environment, cable management and marking is an important part of any network and infrastructure. Nearly every company depends on cables for essentials like data, communications, and electricity. A functional system begins with safety and organizing. M.M. Newman Corporation’s Heli-Tube® is an organizational solution ideally suited for cable management and markings within any industrial electronics and control systems, electro-mechanical assemblies, robotics, automated manufacturing systems, various industrial applications, public utilities, and office networking systems.