Warehouse managers have a new weapon in their fight to prevent loss and damage to their facilities. FM Global, one of the world's largest insurers of commercial and industrial properties, has released thousands of pages of its loss-prevention guidelines through its Web site.

The engineering-based guidelines, called "property loss-prevention data sheets," were unavailable to the public until now. The documents include risk-prevention data and recommendations on such topics as fire prevention, industrial equipment maintenance, construction, human factors, and disaster preparedness. The 170-year-old insurer says the data sheets reflect exclusive research findings and technical information that is not available elsewhere.

The guidelines can be downloaded at no charge from www.fmglobaldatasheets.com. Anyone who registers on the Web site will be notified of changes by e-mail.