Measuring the impact of the internet on maintenance and engineering can be a daunting task. Everyone agrees its impact has been immense, but there is less agreement about exactly what that impact looks like.
Suffice it to say, managers today have much more information at their disposal because of the internet.
They have access to mountains of online data about products, services and technology. Updates on changes in standards, codes and regulations are at their fingertips. And they are in closer communication with front-line technicians in their facilities and their peers across the country. Beyond all of this, they are inventing unforeseen ways to take even greater advantage of the internet’s power.
Since the arrival of the internet in the 1990s, we’ve tried to chronicle the way the internet has changed institutional and commercial facilities, especially maintenance and engineering departments. We launched our web site, www.facilitiesnet.com/ms, in 1995 as another way to meet the changing information needs of readers. We regularly update readers on resources available from the entire spectrum of facilities-related organizations and government agencies.
With this issue, we’re further expanding our efforts to both reflect the internet-related changes going on in facilities and provide readers with important information.
We’re doing this in two ways.
First, a new feature, Net Effect, makes its debut in this issue. Here, each month managers will be able to find a summary of the most important and interesting slices of information on both www.facilitiesnet.com/ms and the internet overall. Also in each issue’s Net Effect they’ll be able to spend “5 Minutes With ...” a manager looking to push the boundaries of both the internet and related technology.
(By the way, if that description applies to you and you’d like to share five minutes of your time with our readers, you can contact me at dan.hounsell@tradepress.com.)
Second, we’ve introduced MS Web Solutions. In selected articles in each issue, managers will find specific internet resources related to the article’s topic.
What’s next? In large part, that’s up to you, the managers working in facilities every day and looking for new solutions to the challenges of maintenance and engineering management. Take a look at what we’ve done, check out the resources and links, and tap into the information at www.facilitiesnet.com/ms. Then tell us what you think and how we can make these resources even better.
