Circuit design help for factory automation

Hello, Gil Blais here. A newbie with programming skills but not with Arduino type systems, more along conventional commercial programming lines. I can handle callbacks, interrupts, etc but have no knowledge how the Arduino presents them and what specific considerations need attention. C, C++, VB, Java, PHP, JS, HTML5 are all proficiencies.
I want to automate a furniture factory by starting with a small project that requires 8 holes being drilled into a piece of wood simultaneously via a bank of drills.

The sequence that I need to perform is:

1. Operator locks wood in place via a pneumatic lever that releases air to pneumatic valves to produce hold-down pressure on the wood. This is to also be used as a START SEQUENCE signal that a cycle has been initiated. What to use to detect this?
2. Once a START SEQUENCE situation is detected, we need to send a signal to an electronic unit to start the drills spinning
3. Send a signal to a pneumatic solenoid that raises the table containing the wood to allow the drills to penetrate halfway through
4. Send a signal to a pneumatic solenoid that lowers the table containing the wood to the bottom of the drills
5. Send a signal to a pneumatic solenoid that raises the table containing the wood to allow the drills to penetrate completely through the wood.
6. Send a signal to a pneumatic solenoid that lowers the table containing the wood to the fully relaxed starting position
7. Send a signal to an electronic unit to stop the drills from spinning
8. Operator now unlocks the drilled wood by releasing the pneumatic lockdown lever, ending one processing sequence

It seems that the Arduino R3 is the choice here, but the remaining hardware is where I need some guidance also. Which relays? What power level(s) to use? Which solenoids?

The system will also need a Panic button to issue a STOP SEQUENCE in case of need
An LED indicating red for ‘Active Sequence’ and white for ‘Waiting/Ready’ would be nice. Later I will add an LCD for production info (counts, run time, etc).

Any help, guidances, references will be gladly accepted. Once completed, I will publish the final working results and possibly a video of an actual sequence running.

I can be reached at 401-484-0328 if there are items requiring a dialogue.

Thank You