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Intelligent use of IT can help manufacturers compete, save them money and increase profit margins. But nothing is free, and the transition of computing from something that’s done once a month to churn out figures for retrospective analysis, to something that has automatic control over day-to-day manufacturing, requires attention to computer availability. Unplanned downtime can not only mean lost production and lost money but, particularly in process plants, wasted output and even compromised health and safety. It’s not difficult to see how expensive a single failure could be, with possibly an entire product batch having to be scrapped – not necessarily because there’s anything wrong with it, but just because an electronic compliance trail is lost
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