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Intelligent product manuals

Article in Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers Part I Journal of Systems and Control Engineering · May 2000
DOI: 10.1243/0954405001518198

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Intelligent product manuals

D T Pham*, S S Dimov and B J Peat

Manufacturing Engineering Centre, Systems Division, Cardi€ School of Engineering, University of Wales Cardi€,
Wales, UK

Abstract: Intelligent product manuals are designed to allow product users to utilize a product as easily,
e€ectively and with as little additional care as possible while minimizing support costs for
manufacturers and suppliers. It is ®rst shown how intelligent product manuals address these
objectives by utilizing electronic, multimedia and knowledge-based technologies to provide active
assistance to the user of the product during tasks such as installation, operation and maintenance.
An architecture for the creation and deployment of an intelligent product manual is then proposed
and general design considerations are outlined. Finally, four implementation approaches, based on
XML, SGML, HTML and PDF technologies, are compared against a set of selection criteria. It is
concluded that simple, low-cost solutions are available, which can provide signi®cant bene®ts for
appropriate businesses, including smaller companies.

Keywords: intelligent product manuals, product support

NOTATION This article ®rst considers the advantages of IPMs

over conventional technical manuals within the total
CAD computer aided design product support environment. Then, the means of
DTD document type de®nition selecting an appropriate form of IPM are covered
HTML Hypertext Markup Language and alternative implementation approaches compared.
HyTime Hypermedia/Time-based Structuring Language The intended audience is those involved in research
IPM Intelligent Product Manual into this technology and those considering developing
PDF portable document format IPMs.
SGML Standard Generalized Markup Language
XLink XML Linking Language
2 PRODUCT SUPPORT
XML Extensible Markup Language
XSL Extensible Style Language
2.1 Product support requirements

1 INTRODUCTION Once a product has been designed, manufactured and

delivered, the user rightly expects that it is also properly
supported. Product support consists of everything neces-
Businesses normally supply products and support services
sary to allow the continued use of a product. It may be
at a quality and cost that are acceptable to the buyer and
required for the tasks of planning (for use), handling
pro®table for the seller. Intelligent product manuals
and installation (preparing for use), operation (use),
(IPMs) are designed to provide more e€ective and ecient
maintenance and troubleshooting (keeping in use), and
product support where this is important for the customer
upgrading and disposal (changing and ending use). The
or costly for the supplier. An IPM is an electronic, multi-
function of the product is supplied during product opera-
media, knowledge-based system that provides active
tion, which is supported by installation, maintenance,
assistance to the user of a product during product-related
upgrading, etc. All of these may require planning and
tasks such as installation, operation and maintenance.
are ideally given consideration at product speci®cation
and design stages.
The MS was received on 21 April 1999 and was accepted after revision To ful®l these support tasks, the product is brought
for publication on 14 December 1999. together with the necessary supplies (consumables and
*Corresponding author: Manufacturing Engineering Centre, Systems
Division, Cardi€ School of Engineering, University of Wales Cardi€, spare parts), equipment (tools and facilities), persons
PO Box 688, Newport Road, Cardi€, Wales CF2 3TE, UK. (suitably skilled) and information.
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412 D T PHAM, S S DIMOV AND B J PEAT

2.2 Conventional product support easy to use and maintain by virtue of this enhanced
task support. The bene®ts of this type of system are a
A product support network provides for the production reduced need for training and for skilled persons
or acquisition, storage and supply of the above support (decreased cost), and better and quicker task perfor-
items. It can include product training, technical docu- mance (reduced cost and improved performance).
mentation, help lines, servicing, spare part ordering Enhanced electronic communication between the
and maintenance management. Conventionally, all hardware, information systems and persons involved in
support items are brought together physically with the product support creates other opportunities to be con-
product, although information and persons can also be sidered alongside IPMs. These include computer-based
supplied remotely, e.g. by telephone link. training, remote hardware monitoring (e.g. via the Inter-
Despite this provision, product support can still be net), tele-presence of skilled persons (e.g. by video links)
costly, labour intensive and of poor quality, both from and integrated spare part ordering and maintenance
the supplier's and user's point of view. Supplies and management systems [1].
equipment considerations apart, these problems can be
linked to the various persons and information systems
involved in the support chain. High support costs are 3 ADVANTAGES OF INTELLIGENT PRODUCT
due to the necessary training of users and support sta€, MANUALS
the transport of these persons where required, and the
time taken for them to access and understand relevant An IPM is a kind of technical manual [2]. The types of
task information. Poor support quality is due to a lack information contained in a technical manual are action
of adequately skilled or motivated persons and to information, support information and planning informa-
diculty in accessing and understanding relevant task tion, as shown in Table 1. The function of a technical
information. manual is to allow the user to access the pieces of infor-
mation that are being looked for and then to understand
2.3 Enhanced product support them so as to be able to perform the required task. Con-
ventionally, information access is achieved through the
IPMs are designed to supply to the user of a product search and navigation facilities listed in Table 2(a),
information of such high quality that the task of the while understanding is achieved by the presentation
user is e€ectively de-skilled. Thus the product becomes means, also listed in Table 2(a).

Table 1 Types of information contained in a technical manual

Item Description

(a) Action information

De®nition Action information is skill-related information that assists a person in doing something with or to the product
Examples Operation, handling, installation, maintenance, troubleshooting, upgrading, disposal
Form This is mostly procedural information, describing a ®xed sequence of steps to accomplish a particular task, given the availability
of the required supplies, equipment, skills and time, with prede®ned pre- and post-conditions
However, there is also conditional information, as for selection, calculation, or decision support. Troubleshooting procedures are
a common example of conditional information, often represented as tables or charts; other examples are operational settings
and product con®guration
Data sources Two-dimensional images and disassembly/assembly sequences from computer aided design (CAD) software; logistic support
analysis; maintenance management software

(b) Support information

De®nition Support information is knowledge-related information about the product, its operation and its constituent parts, principally to
assist in understanding the action information
Examples Technical description, parts lists
Form This is descriptive information. The parts list is normally in tabular format. However this is only a convenience for paper output,
since in general only information from a single row entry is required, linked to an exploded parts diagram or to a part reference
elsewhere in the manual
Data sources Drawings, and exploded and unexploded two-dimensional images from CAD software; parts lists, from bills of materials and
assembly trees, from CAD software and manufacturing resource planning systems and from parts databases and ordering
systems

(c) Planning information

De®nition Planning information gives information with respect to product suitability and performance and with respect to product
operation and maintenance. This acts at a management level with respect to the action information
Examples Purpose and planning information, maintenance schedules
Form This comprises both descriptive and conditional information, often in tabular format
Data sources Product speci®cation; logistic support analysis; maintenance management software

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 INTELLIGENT PRODUCT MANUALS 413

Table 2 Information access and presentation

(a) Conventional manuals

Access (passive) Presentation (static)

Physical structure (pages) Page-based

Logical structure (sections, subsections, etc.) Text
Indexes Tables
Tables of contents Graphics
Cross-references

(b) Intelligent product manuals

Access (active) (according to user request) Presentation (dynamic) (in appropriate form)

Electronic
Search Text, tables and graphics
Freetext/index search Multiple windows/frames
Multiple document search Graphical zoom
Active tables of contents
Navigation
Hyperlink cross-references
Graphic hotspots
Navigation history

Multimedia (often procedural information)

Multi-modal input Audio (including text-to-speech)
Video
Animation

Knowledge-based (conditional information)

Intelligent search Decision support
User adaptation (according to user's need)
User prediction (at appropriate time)

The goal of an IPM is to enable persons to undertake user understanding. Di€erent forms of user interaction
tasks in connection with the product as easily, quickly such as touch screens, gaze control and speech recogni-
and accurately as possible and with as little skill or train- tion can also be used to advantage.
ing as possible. Similar concepts underlie the technolo- A knowledge-based manual allows complex decision
gies of interactive electronic technical manuals [3] and procedures, which in a paper manual would have to be
electronic performance support systems [4]. The overall shown in full, to be accessed in simple dialogue form.
function of an IPM is to guide a person in undertaking In this case, only information relevant to the current
tasks in connection with the product by providing infor- state of the decision process is presented to the user.
mation in a form and at a time most appropriate to the A very common and e€ective application is trouble-
user's needs and requests. The user-oriented function shooting. Another knowledge-based feature is user
of an IPM is to facilitate and expedite access to, and adaptation. Hard adaptation provides alternative views
understanding of, the required information, including of a manual, in terms of the level of detail shown or
the adaptive and predictive presentation of information form of presentation employed, according to the type
to the user. of user currently using the system. The user's skill or
The technologies employed in an IPM may be categor- experience and task or activity may also be taken into
ized as electronic, multimedia and knowledge-based. account. Soft adaptation additionally utilizes informa-
These augment the conventional provision for informa- tion about how the user is or has been using the
tion access and presentation as indicated in Table 2(b) system. The system may also be predictive by pre-
and as shown in Fig. 1. An electronic manual by itself emptively supplying information that is likely to be
o€ers great advantages over a paper manual in terms useful to the user. A ®nal relevant technology is intelli-
of active information access and dynamic information gent search with its in-built natural language processing
presentation. It also enables linking to, or integration facilities.
with, other IT systems, such as those listed under `data The potential combined bene®t of these technologies is
sources' in Table 1, as well as o€ering improved very signi®cant. However, these bene®ts are not achieved
manual distribution and maintenance. automatically. An electronic manual can easily be less
A multimedia manual allows dynamic audio-visual e€ective than its paper counterpart, which boasts high
presentation of information, e.g. videos or animations visual resolution and contrast, is often portable and
of maintenance procedures. These can greatly enhance requires no costly electronic hardware [5].
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414 D T PHAM, S S DIMOV AND B J PEAT

INFORMATION ACCESS
Navigation history Active contents Hyperlinks Freetext search Graphic hotspots

Multimedia User adaptation Decision support Graphical zoom Frames

INFORMATION PRESENTATION
Fig. 1 Prototype intelligent product manual for a rough-terrain fork-lift truck

4 CONSTRUCTION OF INTELLIGENT look at the feasibility of an IPM, general items that

PRODUCT MANUALS should be considered are as listed in Table 3.
The ®rst goal for a practical electronic manual is for
4.1 General considerations the delivery hardware and user interface to be suciently
easy and attractive in use so that the manual is actually
The implementation of an IPM requires business justi®- utilized. Secondly, the delivery system must allow a su-
cation, in terms of why e€ort should be invested in cient number of the features listed in Table 2(b) to be
change, why in this change and with what overall costs implemented for the bene®ts of these technologies to
and bene®ts. Once an initial decision has been made to accrue. The challenge for the developer of the manual
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 INTELLIGENT PRODUCT MANUALS 415

Table 3 IPM design checklist

Item Considerations

Bene®ts User bene®ts and likely user reaction

Current sta€ and other costs associated with product support
Likely reduction in training and support time and costs

Target Product targeted

Manuals targeted (e.g. training, operation, maintenance)
Users and their information needs

Form Display device and user interface

Electronic, multimedia and knowledge-based features
Integration with other IT systems
Means of distribution

Software Nature of existing documentation (focus, size, cost, complexity, longevity, update frequency)
Data already available and their form
Electronic and paper manual production (ideally) from a single source
Reliance on external consultants and sta€ training requirements
Delivery and development software meeting the above needs in a cost e€ective manner

is then to devise a credible and cost e€ective means of presentation, and with regard to integration within the
authoring and maintaining the necessary content, hyper- manual.
links, coordination of information within windows/
frames and integration of external data. These tasks
would preferably be as automated as possible and may 4.2 IPM life-cycle components
imply the use of structured authoring regimes. Multi-
media objects are relatively easy to embed in a manual. A generic IPM life-cycle architecture is shown in Fig. 2.
Knowledge-based facilities require more thought with This indicates the main data and data processing stages,
respect to knowledge representation, authoring and which are elaborated in Table 4. The critical components

DEPLOYMENT
VIEWING

DISTRIBUTION

ELECTRONIC MANUAL PAPER MANUAL

CREATION

Presentation PUBLISHING

PRIMARY DATA

Content
Structure AUTHORING Linking
Logic

PRE-CREATION
EXTERNAL DATA

Fig. 2 IPM life-cycle architecture

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416 D T PHAM, S S DIMOV AND B J PEAT

Table 4 IPM life-cycle components and options

Component Property Description/options

Viewing system Physical interface Desktop, laptop, palmtop, headset, built-in display
Logical interface Document based, kiosk type, graphical (e.g. virtual reality based)
Software Adobe Acrobat viewer, World Wide Web browser, SGML browser (presentation)
Distribution system On-line (network) Local area network, wide area network, Internet (considerations include bandwidth, access
speed and reliability)
O€-line (local copy) CD, electronic transmission
Electronic manual Format PDF, HTML, SGML, XML, Windows/HTML Help
Publishing system Description Document building and module collation
Paper document composition (presentation)
Linking within and between documents/modules (linking)
Primary data Format Microsoft Word, HTML, SGML, XML, Adobe FrameMaker
Authoring system Software Microsoft Word, HTML editor, SGML editor, XML editor, Adobe FrameMaker
Description Document/module level authoring (content, structure).
Cross-references and other links, including links to external data (linking)
Program development (logic)
External data Examples CAD software, parts database, management information system, multimedia software
Management system* Description Management of data and data links within the above software components by means of product
data management systems, document management systems or management features built into
other software

Not included in Fig. 2

to be selected for an IPM are the viewing system and the structure and presentation features. An Adobe PDF
authoring/publishing systems. Also shown in Fig. 2 and (portable document format) ®le may be created as a
in Table 4 are the ®ve document attributes that are simple electronic copy of the `paper' document with
applied at di€erent stages during IPM creation and structure and presentation features embedded in the ®le
deployment. These attributes are structure, content, in a proprietary format.
presentation, linking and logic. (Hyper-)linking can take place both at the content
The separation of structure, content and presentation authoring stage and at the publishing stage, where a
is most clearly seen in systems based on SGML (Stan- modular document paradigm is employed. Again,
dard Generalized Markup Language) [6]. In this case a SGML/XML provides a ¯exible open solution, which
structure document or DTD (document type de®nition) allows a separate linking document or `layer', HTML
precedes authoring, specifying what document elements provides a ®xed open solution and PDF an embedded
are permissible and in what order they may appear. Like- proprietary solution. Logic is particularly relevant to
wise, separate presentation documents or stylesheets, conditional information and leads to programs rather
based on the DTD, precede paper publishing or electro- than simple documents. Programs are natively supported
nic display. The devising of structure and presentation under HTML/XML using the Java virtual machine built
documents represents set-up or preparatory phases into Web browsers.
before document instances can be authored or deployed.
HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is an SGML
application, designed to work on the World Wide Web 4.3 Four implementation approaches
(or simply Web). It has ®xed structure and presentation
forms that are e€ectively embedded in the authoring Table 5 compares four implementation approaches for
and viewing software respectively. This provides a pre- IPM creation and deployment. These are word-processor
prepared environment for authoring and viewing electro- authoring and PDF viewing, HTML authoring and
nic documents. XML (eXtensible Markup Language) [7] viewing, SGML authoring and viewing, and XML
is an SGML pro®le (a simpli®ed SGML), allowing most authoring and viewing. Other combinations of these
of the features of SGML, such as separation of structure, authoring and viewing environments are also possible.
content and presentation, but designed speci®cally to An example of an IPM implementation using SGML is
work on the Web. shown in Fig. 1. The four approaches are assessed (the
Document authoring in a word-processing environ- more black dots the better) with respect to delivery
ment, such as Microsoft Word, typically allows structure software capability and, in part, ease of development.
and paper presentation features to be embedded into the There is an emphasis on lower cost systems (viewers
document as the document content is entered. Document <£100, authoring systems <£1000) suitable for smaller
templates, however, do provide some separation of businesses. It should be noted, however, that the
Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 214 Part B SC01499 # IMechE 2000
 INTELLIGENT PRODUCT MANUALS 417

Table 5 Assessment of four IPM implementation approaches

IPM feature PDF* HTMLy SGMLz XMLx

AccessÐsearch {
Freetext search C    
Multiple document search C    
Intelligent search C    
Index search S  Keywords   Elements/attributes 
Active table of contents S  Bookmarks  (Fixed DTD)  (External DTDs) 

AccessÐnavigation
Hyperlinks Li  Embedded  HTML links  SGML links**  XML links, XLink
Graphic hotspots Li  Embedded  HTML links  SGML links  XML links, XLink
Navigation history    

Presentation
Text, tables, graphics P  Fixed page copy  Fixed `stylesheet'  External stylesheets  XSL stylesheets
Multiple windows/frames    
Graphical zoom    
Multimedia    

Knowledge-based
Decision support Lo   Java, ECMAScript  Hyperlinks  Java, ECMAScript, XSL
Adaptation (hard) Lo    Multiple stylesheets  Multiple stylesheets
Adaptation (soft) Lo   Java   Java
Prediction Lo   Java   Java

Miscellaneous
Ease of use    Complex development 
Robustness    
Non-proprietary    
Cross-platform viewing    
Con®gurability    
Integration (databases, software)    
Paper output (including table of    
contents)

*E.g. Adobe Acrobat Reader 3 viewing, Microsoft Word 97 authoring.

yE.g. Netscape Navigator 4 viewing, SoftQuad HotMetalPro 5 authoring.
zE.g. Interleaf Panorama Viewer 2 viewing, Interleaf Author/Editor 3.5 authoring.
xE.g. Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 viewing, SoftQuad XMetal 1.0 authoring.
{Related document attributes: C ˆ content; S ˆ structure; Li ˆ linking; P ˆ presentation; Lo ˆ logic.
**HyTime (Hypermedia/Time-Based Structuring Language) links, which can be external to the document, can also be used.

technology involved, and software support for particular links can be established with server databases. A
features, is changing very rapidly, particularly with disadvantage is that generated HTML, itself a changing
respect to the HTML/XML and the Web. More func- standard, is often not validated. Also, formatting tends
tionality is provided by more expensive software within to be limited and browser-dependent or else embedded
the SGML environment and by additional utilities or in the document, though the adoption of (cascading)
software within the PDF and particularly the HTML/ stylesheets may improve this situation. There is no auto-
XML environments. matic means of generating an active table of contents and
The PDF solution is a simple, low-cost option utilizing full printing facilities require separate composition soft-
Adobe Acrobat software with free viewers available for ware, although the free program HTMLDOC [8] is one
most platforms. No re-formatting is required, but the means of providing these latter items.
®xed sized pages may not be suitable for on-line viewing. The SGML solution, with its inherent document
In general, manual post-processing is required to validation and open DTDs, is a robust and ultimately
produce `active' tables of contents, hyperlinks, and ¯exible solution. However, it has signi®cant set-up
links to external ®les, e.g. video clips. However, the costs, in terms of the number, cost and complexity of
Adobe Acrobat 3 software plug-in PDFMaker provides required components. A full SGML system can auto-
automatic creation from Microsoft Word 97 of these matically produce electronic and paper copy for every
items, while similar features are now available natively document conforming to the chosen DTD. Even a
in Adobe Acrobat 4. cheap SGML viewer, such as SoftQuad Panorama Pro
The HTML solution is also cheap to implement and (Fig. 1)* can provide con®gurable automatic generation
enables easy authoring, viewing and Web delivery for of multiple tables of contents and multiple views of
simply constructed electronic documents. Programs can
easily be incorporated within documents and real-time 
This product has now been taken over by Interleaf.

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418 D T PHAM, S S DIMOV AND B J PEAT

documents via stylesheets. The DocBook DTD [9] is a an XML application for this purpose, together with suit-
commonly used DTD for technical documentation, able authoring tools, would also be valuable [16].
although the range of elements available may necessitate
training or system tailoring for e€ective use.
A more costly, strictly modular SGML approach is 5 CONCLUSIONS
employed by the aerospace and defence industries. In
this case, each document module contains control The role that IPMs can play in reducing product support
information to enable easy database management of costs through the use of electronic, multimedia and
large quantities of documentation and the subsequent knowledge-based technologies has been outlined.
production of virtual documents. This also allows Simple, low-cost systems are available to produce IPMs
standardized integration with logistic support analysis that can provide signi®cant bene®ts in terms of informa-
and materials management systems, and ideally with tion access, task understanding and decision support.
the design environment where document modules can More complex IPM systems traditionally have rela-
be associated with design components. Module coding tively high set-up costs that are perhaps not a€ordable
requires some initial e€ort. However, module DTDs by smaller businesses. However, this is now changing
tend to be very restrictive, making authoring compara- with the take-up of SGML-like features on the Web in
tively easy. the form of XML.
The XML solution provides many of the bene®ts of
SGML while operating in the interactive and tool-rich
Web environment. The ability of the latest Web browsers ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
natively to view XML documents is a signi®cant advan-
tage for distribution. The open nature of XML and its This work was supported by the Welsh Oce and the
modest parsing requirements are an encouragement for European Commission through the ERDF and INCO-
XML tool development. Furthermore, XML is now COPERNICUS programmes (reference numbers EU
employed as a data exchange format, as well as a docu- 13802004 and INCO-CP96-0231). The prototype intelli-
ment format, so that product data, e.g. converted on gent product manual shown in Fig. 1 utilizes information
output to XML, can be more easily integrated with pro- supplied by Sparky Company, Rousse, Bulgaria.
duct documentation [10, 11]. Work is also underway to
provide XML-native data modelling schemas, for
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 INTELLIGENT PRODUCT MANUALS 419

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