Read this true story, "Institutional Memory and Reverse Smuggling" [0] - once upon a time, a petrochemical factory was built and later essentially forgotten, be

Read this true story, "Institutional Memory and Reverse Smuggling" [0] - once upon a time, a petrochemical factory was built and later essentially forgotten, becoming nothing but a money-making asset on the company's balance sheet. Decades later, the plant is still operating and being maintained. One day, the company suddenly remembered it and wanted to update it to make more money. But at this point, nobody knows how the whole factory worked, why it was built that way, or how it was constructed... > Institutional memory grows hazy at this point. The alien machinery hums along, producing polymers. The company knows how to service it, but isn't quite sure what arcane magic was employed in its construction. In fact nobody is even sure how to start investigating. > It falls to some of the then-younger engineers, now the senior cohort, to dig up documentation. This is less like institutional memory and more like institutional archaeology. Nobody has any idea what documentation exists on this plant, if any, and if it exists, where it is, or what form it might take. It was designed by a group that no longer exists, in a company that has since merged, in an office that has been closed, using non-digital methods that are no longer employed. [0] https://lemming-articlestash.blogspot.com/2011/12/institutional-memory-and-reverse.html https://lemming-articlestash.blogspot.com/2011/12/institutio...