Plant Services - August 2008 - (Page 27) dispersed personnel, shifts and locations. Captured knowledge also might significantly reduce the time and expense of disaster recovery, and can be invaluable for training new recruits. Rely on the Web? It seems that everything anyone really needs to know can be found on the Web. But as mathematician and writer John Allen Paulos said, “ e Internet is the world’s largest library. It’s just that all the books are on the floor,” to which a wag once added, “and the lights are off.” It takes some time and skill to home in on truly relevant information, and experience is helpful for determining which sources can be trusted. Web sites, including www.PlantServices.com, have amassed huge amounts of information about industrial maintenance, plant engineering, reliability and more. Exploration can lead you to a set of sites you can draw upon to replace general knowledge, establish standard procedures, A fi nd specifications and get instructions for many common situations and pieces of equipment. But the public portions of the Web can’t offer details about your own facility, nor a secure structure for storing that sitespecific (and perhaps proprietary) information. And other people’s Web sites aren’t very useful for capturing know-how or organizing, storing and sharing your body of knowledge. Subscribe to wisdom Much of the Web’s most arcane but useful knowledge resides behind paid subscriptions or pay-by-the-download. Paid access to a reputable source might ensure that information is accurate, complete, organized and up to date. And a paying client might obtain a competitive edge by getting information that’s not available for free. One example is SKF’s @ptitudeXchange. Originally planned as the database model for the company’s decision27 .PLANTSERVICES. http://www.PlantServices.com http://www.PlantServices.com
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