The history of IETP – a brief overview

It all began with Printed Hard Copy Manuals

Before the current levels of development in technology that we see nowadays, all documentation of machines and equipment was delivered as a hard-copy manual. Of course, equipment can be extremely complex, made up of many different parts; this means that technical publications in form of physical manuals could be thousands of pages long. Using hard copies also meant that referring to specific processes or troubleshooting via large voluminous printed pages was time-consuming and difficult. S1000D IETM has always been a misnomer from the word GO.

Historical progression: S1000D IETP replaced IETM

Over time, with the growth of technology, hard copies were able to be scanned and viewed as PDF copies, and though this fixed certain issues there were still problems with the number of PDF files needed. IETP (Interactive Electronic Technical Publication) was created as a means of addressing the problems with older formats and hard copies.

IETP is a term that is related to S1000D and is defined by the S1000D specification; it is what details how the data should be structured and set out to the viewer. This is not to be used interchangeably with the term IETM (Interactive Electronic Technical Manual), however, which is a common mistake in terminology on this topic. When speaking about S1000D, the only appropriate term to use is IETP, due to the fact that when S1000D was taken up, IETM ceased to exist in that capacity.

What are the benefits of using IETP?

Because of how flexible XML is, these IETP can range from printed paper manuals to fully digital manuals including diverse ranges of media and a range of formats in which they can be delivered. When viewed online, IETP is designed to be viewed on a browser that include interlinks to mitigate the issues relating to the data modules that had to be viewed in each manual. Moreover, IETPs are non linear, thereby allowing the user to move around with ease and not tie down to a particular way of accessing information.

Advancements in IETP

Over time, IETP has been developed further and offer more dynamic features to users. When viewing an electronic manual in this day and age, it takes up very little space and is able to be viewed easily. Modern-day IETPs are portable and electronic, proving an easy way to view documentation in large quantities, including rich media such as images. Such documentation also offers the ability to manage large amount of content with the ability to trace its evolution.

Due to the fact that S1000D uses XML, it has become the perfect way to create these dynamic and advanced manuals.

Impact of IETP on Maintenance Manuals

Maintenance manuals play an integral part in achieving extremely high levels of safety in various sectors – aviation and space, naval and maritime, oil & gas (offshore rigs) to name a few.

These Manuals must be updated regularly (be it technological advances or learning from unfortunate events), and this is far easier to do when the format is digital and can be done online. Furthermore, documentation becoming digital saves a lot of money because of reduced printing costs, as well as taking up no physical space. Information can also be reused rather than recreated, saving both time and money in this respect.