There are industries where typical sites have accurate and comprehensive documentation. Some obvious examples are commercial nuclear sites, airline operations and maintenance facilities, pharmaceutical plants, etc. In each case, the site must have a formal document control and retention program. Surprisingly, many critical facilities and data centers approach document management in a less structured, informal manner. The result, in many cases, is that on-site staff struggle to retrieve requested documents; and even then, they are not totally confident that the information is accurate and up-to-date.
It is widely recognized that most data center outages (and/or impact events) are the result of “human error.” What is not so well understood is the root-cause for that human error. Human error can include following incorrect procedures, errors associated with poor or incorrect labeling, or actions taken by outside vendors or contractors based on inaccurate as-built documentation. In other words, competent staff acting responsibly can make human errors due to inaccurate or out-of-date documentation.