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Subject:Impact of information explosion on our profession From:rjl -at- BOSTECH -dot- COM Date:Wed, 20 Mar 1996 19:42:09 EST
Chet Ensign had some interesting points about the flood of information and the
impact on our industry. He mentioned one example, the semiconductor
industry. Chet's point was that there was too much information to ship on
paper. I've got another perspective: when I left the semiconductor industry
about a year ago, it had just crossed a threshold where paper documents
had literally become poison to the process. A customer in Germany had such
high clean room standards that they were unable to accept paper documents,
the minute particles of dust from the page would be enough to contaminate
the manufacturing process and ruin the chips.
The answer, of course, was complete on-line documentation. But it is
interesting to note that we have, quietly, entered an area where some
customers are saying "Paper documentation simply is unworkable for my
needs." And for reasons that have nothing to do with the volume of the
data or the ease of use.
Rick Lippincott
Boston Technology
Wakefield, MA
rjl -at- bostech -dot- com
