A hypermedia maintenance information system

The article discusses the use of Microcosm, an open hypermedia system developed by the University of Southampton´s Multimedia Research Group for Pirelli Cables building wire factory at Aberdare, South Wales. An open hypermedia system allows a single multimedia resource base to be used for a range of applications, and permits the users to have access to the stored information in a structured manner. The use of this technology is now widely accepted in education, yet it has not been fully exploited within manufacturing industry for applications such as maintenance, fault diagnostics and operator training. The development of the application is discussed, together with guidelines for the authoring of future systems. With the integration of Microcosm with knowledge based systems for fault finding and network technology communication to remote databases, the concept of industrial strength hypermedia can be realised.