Documentation for engineering standards, supplier requirements, methods and procedures, and inter departmental interface process documents will ensure a consistent, maintainable hardware configuration.
Engineering standards documents are critical to ensure that all of the engineers ordering equipment have an identical understanding of the company's functional requirements for power equipment. A set of engineering standards ensures that all of the required features are present in the equipment being ordered. In addition, these engineering standards can require the same equipment manufacturer in a geographic area and identical components to greatly reduce maintenance expenses both in the training of technicians and the stocking of adequate maintenance components. Supplier documents or engineering standards to the equipment provider can not only provide a means for standard products, but ensure the best price and/or warranty by providing a firm definition of the customer's requirements of the supplier. These requirement should become the basis of a purchase agreement with all suppliers of power equipment in order to ensure consistancy and reliable products. Method and procedure documents are needed to ensure that all of the personnel use the same process to perform or contract preventative maintenance. Methods and procedures can also be a valuable tool in trouble shooting problems in any system. Well written step by step procedures can ensure that no step is overlooked when corrective or preventative maintenance is performed. Inter-departmental interface documents will ensure a consistent set of methods and procedures to be used when groups of employees are working across departmental lines. In addition to a sharable procedure, these documents can define the transition points of responsibilities between departments during the life of the applicable project.