IETM and IETP Services

Interactive Electronic Technical Manuals

DesignTech Systems is one of the leading organisations providing design and development of Interactive Electronic Technical Manuals (IETM) and Interactive Electronic Technical Publications (IETP) services to Defence, Aerospace, Naval services and manufacturing industries. DesignTech Systems has been developing technical manuals since 2010, and thus has gained rich experience and expertise in this area. We have delivered numerous level 1, 2, 3 & 4 IETMs for various OEMs and ship builders and defence establishments. The IETMs are developed in accordance with Joint Service Guide (JSG) 0852:2001 as well as S1000D guidelines.

What is IETM/IETP

IETM or interactive electronic technical manual is a digital guidebook that includes content delivery through interactive navigation with searchable databases, multimedia content like videos, animations, and voice-over that takes the users through a self-paced step-by-step guide to product information, and product operating procedure.

This format of training content allows users to learn or navigate at their pace, repeat the lessons, understand the working of the product or systems in great detail through virtual animations and parts identification, thus making it an engaging and efficient content delivery system. It is especially useful for large and complex engineering systems training, maintenance and servicing, product catalogue, and for knowledge sharing as a user guide. It can be stored on cloud and hence can be accessed by teams based out of different geographical locations. It can be made available in multiple languages for ease of use and understanding. It is extensively used in naval applications, aerospace and defence, heavy manufacturing where technical documentation is vast, and also in consumer electronics as a user training digital manual. IETMs come in different levels with varying functionalities.

Advantages of IETM/IETP

Electronic technical manuals, also termed as Interactive Electronic Technical Publications (IETP), are gradually replacing the printed manuals. Not only in Services, Manufacturing, and Denfese, but even the paper manuals for household gadgets in consumer electronics are being slowly replaced with IETMs / IETPs. Because they prove to be extremely useful, ITEMs and IETPs have gained popularity and acceptance in service and manufacturing industries from all over the world. Today, India and most other countries use IETM services in one form or other. IETM / IETP services are typically provided by a contractor or they are created by the product development companies themselves. IETMs / IETPs are specifically designed for digital display to an end user, and have many advantages over printed manuals:

They are easier to access than printed manuals
They eliminate the need for using large storage space, and data replication is much simpler
IETMs / IETPs are environment friendly as they are not printed
In case of product upgrade or technical errors, the IETMs / IETPs can be updated easily
IETMs can provide role based access
They are optimized for easy navigation and consequently for quicker retrieval of information
They provide interactive intelligent schematics
They have animated and interactive 3-D interactive graphics to display parts and assemblies
They reduce maintenance time due to their portability and ease of access

Integration of Reality Technologies with Technical Manuals

DesignTech Systems is amongst the rare few organisations having experience in development of technical manuals and reality technology based simulations. This is a very unique offering from DesignTech Systems Combining the latest reality based technologies like Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR) with technical manuals for a very effective and explicit understanding of critical operations. With this technique all the crucial operations, maintenance, service & repair processes can be converted in Reality based experiences and integrated with technical manuals.

DesignTech Systems Value Proposition - 360 degree services for IETM development

One stop solution for development of IETM applications; level 2, 3, 4 & S1000D
IETM applications approved by Indian Navy
Extensive experience of IETM development for leading suppliers of defence systems and equipment
Successfully delivered IETM applications for a wide product spectrum from a pump to entire ship
More than 40 projects delivered and approved
Niche organisation offering integration of technical manuals and reality technologies
Experience in handling a wide product portfolio

DesignTech Systems Differentiators

Thorough understanding of Class 1 to Class 4 guidelines
End to end solution for IETM development
Experience in interacting with dockyards and Naval authorities for the application approval
IETM applications developed in line with Naval guidelines and infrastructure requirements

Classification of IETMs

Depending upon the level of sophistication, IETMs can be classified into five main classes. It should be noted that these classes quintessentially represent advances in digital technology

Class 1

Electronically indexed pages

This IETM class follows the structure of a printed book, with indexes and table of contents that are hyperlinked into the content of the document

Class 2

Electronically scrolling documents

This format includes more hyperlinks than Class I, such as figures, tables and section references. A hyperlinked PDF document is the typical example of this class

Class 3

Linearly structured IETM

in this class the book structure is discarded; instead the document is structured more freely following the logic of the content. Hyperlinking is provided throughout the document

Class 4

Hierarchically structured IETM

In this class the data is stored in a relational database, obtaining benefits of data integrity and removal of data redundancy. Relationships in the content that are presented as hyperlinks, are mapped directly to relations in the database schema

Class 5

Integrated data base

In this class the documentation is now integrated with expert systems that may influence the display of content. For example, the IETM system may aggregate data from a large number of users input, feed that to the expert system that analyses it and then the result gets fed back to the user through the IETM system.

DesignTech Systems Class 4 IETM Expertise

DesignTech Systems has developed a robust framework for Class 4 IETM.

This framework is a result of strong R&D efforts over last 10 years and in depth interactions with Indian Naval approving authorities

IETM framework is compatible with multiple devices

IETM operates in Windows and other OS environments

IETM is a web based/ cloud based application

No need for any third party tools for IETM installation

Features of Class 4 IETM

Administrator Function

To control the documents access based on user profile
To manage user annotaitons and bookmark
To maintain data backup

IETM dashboard

This dashboard consists of electronic content on the right and tree structure based navigation of content on left, other features include Search, Print, Annotation, Bookmark, Help, Navigation and Home options