Raise your hand if you’re familiar with Murphy’s Law. For those unfamiliar, it’s the idiom that “anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” You’ve likely experienced this at some point in your life, and a great example would be replacing a flat tire only to have another go flat soon thereafter. Anyone familiar with Murphy’s Law can attest to the implications it can have in the document imaging industry.
While power anomalies are not usually considered “worst-case” scenarios, when Murphy’s Law is applied, they could have devastating effects. The NSA’s billion dollar center in Utah is a perfect example. The facility, one of the Pentagon's biggest U.S. construction projects, was to be a symbol of the spy agency's surveillance prowess and ingenuity. Unfortunately Murphy’s Law kicked in, chronic electrical surges at the massive new data-storage facility central to the National Security Agency's spying operation destroyed hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of machinery and delayed the center's opening for a year.
More than anything, this serves as a cautionary tale to smaller companies and institutions that no one is immune to power issues. If the most powerful government in the world can have these kind of failures, certainly imaging businesses, retail stores, and everyone else is susceptible too.
Uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) are often relied on for total power protection, a common mistake. A UPS is a key consideration for power outages or brownouts but offers limited protection from sudden surges, spikes, and electrical noise. In fact, they are just as susceptible to the damaging effects as any other piece of equipment. In the event of a power outage, one of the greatest advantages of a UPS is the time it grants you to save any data that is open and properly shut down equipment. This period of time avoids data loss or component damage. However, in order to provide continuous “clean power” (power that’s free of sudden spike or dips) and hopefully avoid Murphy’s Law, it’s necessary to use surge protection.
The imaging systems that help keep our businesses and institutions moving forward include many different devices besides the printers, scanners, or fax machines that first come to mind. Power protection is just as important as any other component. As Murphy’s Law would have it, a power anomaly won’t just affect one of the systems above, it could affect all of them at once, or cause a chain reaction of system failures. Don’t wait for a meltdown or equipment failure, make power protection an integral part of your technology ecosystem. You’ll realize short and long-term benefits, and you just might be able to avoid Murphy’s Law.
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