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Most of us have heard about e-commerce for over twenty years, with online retail shopping being a matter of course today. During this same period, commercial and industrial suppliers have quietly evolved their own online procurement ecosystem, with modern footprints that often rival consumer platforms in revenue if not volume.

It’s not always so obvious how many (or how few) degrees of protection stand between a normal operation and a significant emergency, especially for more mundane systems that don’t fail in spectacular ways. With this thought in mind, we’re too-often shocked when we hear about incidents where virtually no safety measures were in place, which motivates us to write this article sharing ideas about how engineers can conceptualize safety decisions using a unique layered approach.

When you look across your pool of industrial component suppliers, how do you gauge their value to your organization? Do you measure suppliers primarily by their pricing, their delivery speed, or perhaps their responsiveness?