Fortunately, during one of the several treatment plant expansion contracts, a meeting was held to discuss how the O&M manuals should look. The original request was for a printed pocket guide. The design consultant for the plant expansion, Malcolm Pirnie (MPI), made the suggestion of a windows based help program. At the time, the help-file based system was "state of the art" technology for electronic O&M manuals. The main selling point was that updates could be made at one location and the change would be instantaneous for everyone at the plant. The plant management and evaluation group agreed to proceed with the format and developed of the first electronic O&M manual began. City staff were trained, materials were converted and support was provided by MPI.
Approximately a year later, MPI showed a new and improved version utilizing web-based technology, that would eliminate the problems associated with proprietary software such as Windows help files. The web technology did not use proprietary software and included a powerful search engine, to create a user-friendly environment. After several meetings, the plant staff decided that web technology was definitely the direction of the future. Additional staff training took place, conversions were made and a web based O&M manual was born. A screen capture of a page from the original system for the City of Phoenix 91 st Avenue WWTP is shown below.
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