Operation and maintenance manuals on the Intranet

Citation

(2000), "Operation and maintenance manuals on the Intranet", Facilities, Vol. 18 No. 1/2. https://doi.org/10.1108/f.2000.06918aab.030

Operation and maintenance manuals on the Intranet

Keywords Internet, Building maintenance, Manuals

Earlier this year MICAD Systems announced the release of an innovative new product, the Intranet Drawing Register and Document Sharing System (IDR). Subsequently the product has been updated to enable the conversion of operation and maintenance manuals into a digital format. Currently, within most organisations, even though the accessibility of these essential documents is considered to be of vital importance, their storing and management are sorely neglected. This problem has been compounded since CDM legislation requires Health and Safety documents and "cradle to grave" building information to be made available, a far too labour intensive and space hungry task.

The University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST), which recently installed the IDR system for use with their Estates Intranet have worked closely with MICAD to find a robust solution. The aim was to find an acceptable method of converting the hard copy multipage O&M manuals into a digital information repository, which could then be accessed over the University Intranet.

The solution was provided by Hewlett Packard with an economic and practical method of scanning these documents, using a recently launched digital scanner which scans at the rate of 15 pages per minute, directly into Adobe pdf file format. The IDR operates on the basis that all the data are on the Web server and the subscriber to the data utilises a standard Intranet browser to view the information. With this unique facility, tradesmen, contractors and or managers can view, print and search on keywords within a pdf document from anywhere on their Intranet (permissions granted). By using the unique features of the IDR, CAD drawings and the O&M manuals would be available at the same time from the one database and from the same site location information page. The IDR, although a proprietary software package, uses a standard industry pdf viewer. It will therefore be upgradable and hence "future-proof" as computer systems develop.

The quality and clarity of the digital document is as good as the original; therefore once the manuals have been converted to their new format they will provide the information on demand for which use they were originally intended. There are clearly many benefits to using this type of software but perhaps from an operational point of view, the ability to manage all the documents centrally and provide the information directly to the workplace stands out as a major cost saving exercise.

For further information contact Andrew Terry, Managing Director of MICAD Systems. Tel: +44 (0)161 474 7174; E-mail: andrewt@micad.co.uk