What stage would the Equipment Handbook have been produced at?

[Chris55000]

Hi!

In connection with my Replacement Manual Writing Projects, can anyone tell me what are the stages involved in producing something like a Cossor, Marconi or SELabs Oscilloscope Equipment Handbook or Manual?

Are they started as soon as the design and specifications have been decided on, or are they only started after the first complete prototype/pre–production models are built?

For something like the Cossor CDU series of Oscilloscopes which of necessity, have a very large amount of front–panel components wiring, what was the usual way of documentating this for the factory? – would there have been master drawings or was it more usually done by means of a written schedule or table?

Any Members had experience of being involved in anything like this for something like an Oscilloscope, for instance, or am I likely to be the only member so far to go have attempted this from a completed production item?

Chris Williams

[Cobaltblue]

Anybody's guess.

In our case the handbooks have to be in a released state before the product is released for sale.

The handbooks usually start as soon as the design requirements are agreed.

That includes the product support plan the family tree as well as the installation and user guides that seems to be norm for Siemens in last 30 years at least.

It was the same at Plessey so I suspect it's industry wide.

Cheers
Mike T

[Radio Wrangler]

For factory production there would gave been circuit diagrams and PCB artwork plus component location diagrams and material listings (BOMs)

There would be paper diagrams for making nail-boards for making wiring harnesses along with listings and drawings for each individual wire.

Components and wiring built onto the backs of say front panel controls of sockets on a chassis would be done as several drawings illustrating the build-up of the thing in several layers. This shows the necessary sequence and avoids ambiguity.

There's a lot more information than ever goes in the manual. There will be engineering drawings for all manufactured or assembled parts. There will be specification drawings for all purchased parts. Everything about the design has to be bolted down, or all hell will break loose sometime in the future.

One or two people from the manual writing group will get involved right from the beginning of a project. They need to know what it is for and how it will do that. Learning from the beginning and getting to see where compromises have to be made, and also retrenchement to find a way round problems are all good for understanding.

Later on you may get specialist illustrators tidying up production drawings, removing info that isn't wanted on the loose, and simplifying things to what repairers need. We had R&D people write descriptions of how their stuff worked so it was from the horse's mouth to start with. Tech authors had the job of re-writing it so folk downstream could understand. They'd go back and ask awkward questions.

David

[Chris55000]

Hi!

Thanks for that David – I've never worked anywhere where I've been involved with actually writing something up from "a blank sheet of paper" as it were, I've always been a repair engineer all my life, so any documentation has always had to be done "in reverse" from a finished product!

I did have to make some quantities of small hand–held remote control units from brand new parts when I worked a T.D.C. in Cambridge, but these were always copied from a previous accepted built sample, never from any documentation!

Alas to say, I could never have afforded a Heathkit Oscilloscope kit brand new, so I've never had the experience of assembling a brand–new kit of parts!

Chris Williams