Computer-Aided Technical Publications

Abstract

All phases of the engineering design and manufacturing processing have been either monitored by or produced on a computer for over twenty years. However the last phase of production, technical manuals, has remained a manual process until recently. Portions of the technical manual process were automated some time ago. Several vendors have produced systems which attempt to integrate the automated portions as well as provide enhancements. A true understanding of the technical manuals production cycle has not been developed by the vendors. Herein lies the crux of the problem with developing a superb system.

Several months of research culminated with the result that a “good” technical publications system does not currently exist. The author, therefore, proposes a system which satisfies the requirements of Technical Publications.