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Aftermarket Intelligence - IETM, June 2016 WP2/AMI/0616 www.maxbytetech.com

Interactive 3D Technical Publication

If you can’t picture it, you can’t understand it.

June 2016

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Aftermarket Intelligence - IETM, June 2016 WP2/AMI/0616 www.maxbytetech.com

1. Introduction In the product lifecycle starting from idea till end of life,

various technical documents like customer specification,

design documents, process work instructions, assembly

procedures, service manuals, catalogues and product

manuals are inevitable. These documents are used by

corresponding stakeholders in R&D, manufacturing process

engineering, assembly, service and marketing. More the

clarity in these technical documents better the

communication to stakeholders in understanding and

executing their activities. The technical manuals in typical

product development landscape is shown in below.

Technical manuals in product development landscape

Traditional technical manual challenges:

Currently the traditional technical manuals are mostly

in textual description.

Assembly & service work instructions are used as hard

copies.

Traditional technical manuals are becoming tedious to

understand the instructions, cause endless rework,

laborious, costly and error-prone.

Chances for out-of-date information due to traditional

revision control.

Difficulty in communicating complex procedures to

workers in remote facilities and ensure safety.

“If I can’t picture it, I can’t understand it.” – ALBERT

EINSTEIN

Digitization is increasingly taking over all the traditional

approaches in product development to bring better

customer experience, time-to-market and operational

efficiency. This is particularly true for technologically-

sophisticated products. Interactive Electronic 3D Technical

Manual (IETM) will be one of the enablers of digital product

development for the manufacturing organizations. IETM is

an interactive 3D technical manual, authoring and

publishing technology which is used for the digital technical

documentation to enable digital product development,

manufacturing and service process. An example of IETM

with 3D illustration is shown below.

Examples of IETM with 3D illustration

Choosing IETM software application and implementation is

a key challenge in manufacturing industry because the

IETM is an emerging technology across the industry

verticals and does it meet all the needs of the product

development, manufacturing & support processes

requirements is a question always.

2. IETM IETM is a Build-Publish-Manage-Use process to meet

industry needs as shown below. This process has to be

established through a cross functional technical publication

team mentored by product design team since the product

3D models are generated in design team which is the

basement for IETM.

IETM Process

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IETM technology is a suite of applications integrated

together to bring the business values. Most of the IETM

software products like PTC – Creo illustrate & Arbortext,

Parallel Graphics – Cortona3D, Dassault Systemes – 3D Via

Composer would have technology framework as shown

below.

IETM Technology

Structure Authoring - Create and edit XML- or SGML-

structured document components and assemblies and

implement publishing standards like DITA, S1000D.

Technical Illustration - Create 2D or 3D illustrations and

animations from scratch or original 2D and 3D CAD

systems. Maintain associativity between the illustrations

and animations and the CAD data to automate the updating

process when engineering designs change throughout the

product lifecycle.

Publishing and Content Management - Use a single source

of information to handle multiple versions of both source

content and finished publications. Easily manage complex

information assets, documentation and publishing

processes.

3. CAD Animation Movie versus IETM Though CAD movie files and movie embedded web pages

can be created for a technical manual and there are many

limitations with CAD movie file based technical manuals.

Table below explains the difference between CAD movies

embedded in webpage and IETM.

Comparison of CAD animation movie embedded in

webpage and IETM

CAD MOVIE EMBEDDED WEBPAGE

IETM

Interaction is not possible This is more interactive with the manual

Options like rotate, zoom, pan are not available

We can rotate, zoom and pan while seeing the work instruction

Movie file needs more memory storage

IETM can be stored within few MB memories

It is not synchronized with instruction

3D animation synchronized with instruction steps

Product structure cannot be viewed

Product structure can be viewed

BOM, exploded views, annotations are not possible in movie files

Interactive BOM, exploded views, annotations are the available in 3D technical manual

Movie file needs CAD license to create disassembly/assembly which is expensive

Technical manual license is viable when compared to CAD license

4. Industry Applications IETM have following wide industry vertical application in

product development, manufacturing and service process

with digital interactive, 3-Dimensional, illustrative and

enterprise integration capabilities.

Product maintenance manuals

Product and component repair manuals

Interactive service bulletins

Trouble shooting manuals

Routing and harness manuals

Assembly work Instructions

Product marketing manuals

Equipment handling manuals

Process operating manuals

Product and component catalogues

Training and E-learning – product and process

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Aftermarket Intelligence - IETM, June 2016 WP2/AMI/0616 www.maxbytetech.com

5. Skill Sets for IETM Authoring & Usage

6. The Challenges Availability 3D CAD data library of tools / preventive

equipment which are used in manufacturing, assembly,

service, process work instructions are not available

with product or part manufactures.

Accessibility of 3D technical document near

manufacturing, assembly, service, workplaces are only

through mobile devices like tablet which incur cost to

the manufacturers.

Realization of IETM - 3D Technical Publications

technology and its benefits requires business process

change.

Inefficient process in IETM authoring and output file

version control with respect to 3Dmodel/drawing

change by design and manufacturing process

engineering team.

7. Benefits & Business Values Increase customer adoption and capture greater

market share

Increase operational efficiency

Time reduction in process planning &

documentation

Standardized procedures & work instructions

New level of clarity effectiveness in technical

manual

Near elimination of trainings & reduce training

investments

Increase first-time fix rate and reduce resolution

cycles

Grow aftermarket service and parts revenues

Increase productivity and lower manual labor

costs

Minimize production costs related to printing and

translation

8. IETM Implementation Strategy Implementing IETM software shall be a strategy in

realizing it benefits. Before the implementation,

IETM roadmap can be planned by involving the

stakeholders. For effective IETM implementation

the recommended roadmap is shown below.

9. References 1. CIMdata (2006), “Leveraging Product Development

Knowledge: The Role of Product Data in Creating

Innovation”, USA, pp.1-10.

2. R. Stark, Et al, (2010), “Competing in engineering

design—The role of Virtual Product Creation”, CIRP

Journal of Manufacturing Science and Technology

3. Jim Brown (2006),”The Product Lifecycle Collaboration

Benchmark Report”, Aberdeen Group.

4. WANG Fengchan, SUN Youchaoa,XU qinghong (2011),

“Study of maintenance task generation concept model

to virtual maintenance”, The 2nd International

Symposium on Aircraft Airworthiness

5. Improving Technical Publications, “Produce Technical

Documentation that is as Advanced as Your Products”,

white paper,www.PTC.com.

6. Better Service through Better Service Information,

“Consistent, up-to-date service information that is

tailored to the needs of technicians improves the

quality and efficiency of your service organization”,

white paper, www.PTC.com

7. Krishna Rajendra N, Ananda C S, Sudha Parige (2011),

”Advances in Computer Based Training Simulations for

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Aftermarket Intelligence - IETM, June 2016 WP2/AMI/0616 www.maxbytetech.com

Product Support and Maintenance in Aerospace

Industry”, International conference On Trends in

Product Lifecycle,Modeling,Simulation and Synthesis,

pp.285-289.

8. Dassault Systemes, ”Communicating Technical Product

Information across the Enterprise with 3DVIA

Composer”, white paper, www.3dviacomposer.com

9. Eric L. Jorgensen and Joseph J. Fuller, “A Web-Based

Architecture for Interactive Electronic Technical

Manuals (IETMs)”

11. Siemens PLM Software, “Lifecycle visualization

illustrate-Creating technical illustrations that are

associative to managed CAD information”, white

paper, www.siemens.com/teamcenter.

12. PTC,”Technical illustration: Bridging the Gap between

3D and Product Documentation”, white paper,

www.PTC.com.

Maxbyte Technologies help product development companies for an effective current technical manual maturity

assessment and IETM implementation & support for product development and aftermarket solutions in web and

mobility.

To Learn More Visit www.maxbytetech.com or contact Maxbyte to discuss how Maxbyte can work for your business today:

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