Only McGyver Can Imagine the Possibilities

No secret, I work in a business whose goal is to write software and store data that helps match buyers and sellers of commercial and government aviation and marine equipment. And man, do we have a cubic shat ton of data.

Apparently, we have some big government contracts; which means butt tons of government data.

One of ILS's PD (product directors) told me about one "file" the government has. One case is for military ships. They have data on EVERY piece of equipment that is on any given ship. They have specific numbers of extras on hand as well for repairs, etc. based upon repair and usage rates for given equipment.

In addition to knowing every piece of equipment that is on a ship, they also know every component that is required to build that piece of equipment. Trust me, now we're running into the millions or tens of millions or parts. Hell, could even be hundreds of millions. Think about a single friggin' cooking pot-- one handle, one pot, X screws, blah blah blah.

Okay, here's what it gets really crazy. Since we know every component that is required to compose every piece of equipment, the data also tells us what parts can be interchanged.

Can you imagine if everything worked that way? You could figure out all the different applications for that doohickey in your garage.

And now that Purdue U. is working on ways to search by sketches the possibilities are endless.