clare at snyder.on.ca wrote
Rod Speed wrote
clare at snyder.on.ca wrote
Rod Speed wrote
Too_Many_Tools wrote

Most companies data isn't worth anything after only a handful of years.

Engineering data is the heart of a business.

Not data thats a handful of years old.

Management often forgets that.

Then a competitor eats them alive.

Bet you cant list any examples of that with
data thats older than a handful of years old.

I sure can.

Nope, you couldnt.

I milwright designs a feed mill. Back in 1966. He rebuilds that mill in
1981. He builds 5 more mills between those dates, and onother 12 since.

His office burns down and he loses all his engineering drawings.

You cant use a single design over all that time.

Tell that to the guys that build the elevator portion of the mill.

Pity about the rest of the mill.

All the pipe transitions etc. have been standardized for many
years by these guys. They designed something that works, that
is relatively simple to build, and they just keep right on using it.

There is more involved than just the pipe transitions etc.

or the drawings get soaked when a pipe breaks. How much
were those engineering drawings from 1965 worth today?
Hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Fantasy. You cant use a single fixed design over all that time.

Another firm with current engineering drawings
will eat him alive when a new mill is up for tender.
That's why he invests in a large format scanner and enters ALL the
old drawings into cad, at very high cost, and keeps 2 offsite
backups.

Or take a land surveyor's office.
ALL the surveys done in the past 35+ years are kept onsite, and
many are referred to daily to tie in new surveys etc. What would it
cost to regenerate even a small fraction of those survey plans?
What is their current value??? Significantly higher than the
original cost to produce the survey.

Adequately covered by his original MOST.


Anthony Matonak wrote:
John Husvar wrote:
"Too_Many_Tools" wrote:
Archival storage of data is a BIG deal that the industry
doesn't like to talk about.

Most companies data isn't worth anything after only a handful of
years.

Well, I suppose one could print and store all all the data
records on acid-free paper and then physically go find the ones
they wanted. Shouldn't take more than a medium-sized army of
clerks and only a small hollowed mountain range for the storage.

The absolute best storage is microfilm or some variant of it.
You're pretty much assured that no matter what happens with
technology that you'll still be able to read it, even decades
later. You can buy computer microfilm printers. Direct print
to microfilm, no developing required.