In this same boiler room, each piece of major equipment was also labeled with a metal plate inscribed with pertinent information like the equipment number (e.g., Boiler #1). Equipment and system automation consisted of full time boiler operators feeding coal to the fires, manually opening draft dampers, adjusting steam flow via hand valves, and logging operating parameters down on an hourly basis. It was communication technology at its finest for that period in time.
Leaping ahead to the 1960s and well into the 20th century, consulting engineers began to promulgate standardized contract specifications as word processing accelerated spec-writing tasks. At that point in time, it was common practice to cut and paste which really entailed cutting and stapling standard office specifications together on a job-by-job basis.