O&M Manuals go Digital
The digital option - CD or Intranet
Whenever a building is renovated or a new building is handed over, one of the final steps is to hand over the Operations and Maintenance Manual. This is typically a giant set of documents that contains all the information that future facilities managers will need – everything from the recommended cleaning fluids for the carpets, to the CAD drawings for the wiring ducts; from spare parts lists for the lifts to recommended maintenance procedures for the security system.
In most cases the manual is actually hundreds of pages of documents, all painstakingly indexed and copied and filed in one massive set of folders that everybody hopes will be kept safe for the times when they are needed.
At the end of 2003 Overbury plc approached Denaploy Ltd and asked them to come up with an alternative that would bring this element of the building industry up to date.
The brief:-
- Create something that will be easier for the facilities manager to use.
- Make it easier to compile the manual from all the different documents coming in from all sorts of different sources
- Create a ‘house style’ for Overbury and make sure that the whole process can be completed without any delay to the very tight timetable needed to meet their ‘perfect delivery’ timetable for handing over the jobs.
“Overbury has a long standing commitment to creating continuous improvements in the service we offer to our clients. Delivering better O&M manuals that are easier to use, more accessible at the moment that they are required, and more secure, was a clear opportunity to deliver such an improvement.
We were delighted by the way in which Denaploy rapidly got to grips with the complex requirements of the process and delivered a service that was easy for us to work with and is a clear step towards setting a new benchmark for O&M manuals in the industry”
Andy Wright – Project Manager Overbury
The benefits of having a digital version of the manual as well as the paper version, are obvious (see boxes), but to make it all work required 3 separate elements to be bought together. And, of course, it is vital that the project managers themselves maintain complete control over the content and ensure that it is correct.
- Standard formatting
- All documents have to be converted to a standard format that makes it easier for the user to navigate around them. Eg standard numbering, page referencing, etc. This is not always easy as the suppliers are not all able to create do this reliably even when supplied with the necessary templates.
- Document Control
- Lots of additional documents have to be referenced and they may be in any sort of format from .pdf to dwg. An additional complication is that these documents are often very similar to each other and need to be carefully managed.
Indexing
The final process is to index the standard documents to create an index and search facility.
To make this process work Denaploy created a private website that all those associated with the construction of the manual can use to upload the documents and their associated files as soon as they are ready. They then vet the formatting and convert those that need it into the house style, and manage the whole process.
An ancillary advantage of the website is that all the documents are made visible to the project managers within Overbury so they can track progress and make sure that everything is delivered on time and to plan.
The problems with paper
- The shear bulk of the full manual is difficult to handle and means that it is probably not always accessible at the time and place it is needed.
- Pages that are extracted in order to solve an immediate problem when it arises, are often not put back or are mis-filed after the emergency. They are then not available the next time they are needed.
- It is not easy to find all the information you want – the telephone number of the support company may be in Vol 1, the wiring diagram will be in Vol 3, the list of spare parts are in Vol 4 etc.
The benefit of CD or Intranet
- The whole manual will fit onto a standard CD and can therefore be given to all those that might need to use it.
- You print the documents that you need, when you need them, so they are never lost (the software needed to read specialist files such as CAD drawings is included in the CD)
- A search facility build into the CD enables you to search for all references to the issue that you are interested in, and browse through them very quickly.
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