The Story I received a telephone call from Spain..... asking for help in obtaining a PCB.....
A Project A small vessel - a trawler - was designed and built in Port Glasgow, Scotland some time in the 1960's
A Subcontractor Messrs Archibald Watson & Dundas of Hillingdon, Electrical Engineers in Glasgow (AWD).
The Sub contract The electrical equipment, including the engine room controls, which were to be designed, fabricated, installed and commissioned by AWD
Indexing AWD affixed their nameplate to the switchgear and control panel.
Need for Records In 2006, the vessel went into Bilbao for refit. The Engine Room control panel needed a replacement PCB which performed some simple function.
The Quest First they tried the AWD contact details on the nameplate - but failed to find AWD.
Next they used an internet search engine - and found a few links by virtue of the search engine's indexing.
Then they started chasing people who were identified on the links - I received the call as my CV which is on line referenced AWD.
As Commercial Manager of the electrical engineering group of which AWD was a part, I knew that AWD had split - the design office became DHE and the workshops were taken over by Walker McLeod. The group was put into liquidation in 1984.
At DHE, the senior management had retired, the firm downsized to just a few of the newer and younger members of the team
At Walker McLeod, all the AWD staff had retired.
However, I had kept in touch with AWD's, later DHE's chief engineer, now curator of the Boness Steam railway. On the AWD shopfloor, it had become common practice to put all the shop documents into a plastic bag, and place it in the void of the double skinned end panel.
The Result At Bilbao, they found the records: and of the PCB, but NOT the design logic diagrams.
BUT, the French PCB manufacturer was out of business, and without the logic diagrams.....
Points to Note:
  • All projects have a structure usually based on contracts,
  • The knowledge that people have is often invaluable but unrecorded,
  • The life and needs of the archive need to be defined.

Page 1 of 10
CIRIA Presentation
Visit the TDOC Web Site