‘I See - I Know
1. The dictum above for inducting/training any operative/maintainer on new equipment has a very important place for reading/documentation. Equipment changes hands from one commission to another through its life cycle. In this land of Vedas & Puranas there is a legacy of passing knowledge by word of mouth and not in written text, it is not surprising that we hold in awe ships bought from UK/Russia for the quality of documentation they hand over to us as a crew !! A tangible deliverable like documentation is still a blind spot in terms of its quality of content. Documentation finds elaborate mention in contracts during purchase of equipment or ship for an effective life cycle management of a new vessel. The importance of Life cycle management colloquially termed as ‘Womb to Tomb’ is dependent on what is handed over to Navy in cradle at the delivery of a new project. The experiences at WOT during ab-initio phase of ships’ life is elucidated in succeeding paragraphs. It is a narrative in form of bridge-gap analysis bringing out the shortfalls and way ahead, from stage of SOTR (i.e. womb) to delivery stage (i.e. cradle) of a new construction warship.
CONCEPT TO EXECUTION: BRIDGE GAP ANALYSIS
2. Comprehensive Requirement for Documentation. The defining guideline for delivery of documents addresses the need of user from ship staff as operator to the technician in dockyard at maintenance level. They are enumerated vide DME 452, DME 456, JSS 0251-01 and EED-S-04-048 for data in hard bound manuals. The documentation for delivery in soft copy / IETM format is covered in EED-P-23.
3. Development of Quality in Content of Documentation. The subject of quality of technical content in the deliverable document handed over to the operator first dawns on navy as a customer when the first OPDEF is raised on that equipment. The wording of instructions is a specialized field where technical content editors write and structure a manual or handbook. e.g. There is subtle difference between sketch/layout/ schematic diagram and the correct usage can make difference in ease of comprehension for the man at sea. The nuance of quality content in documentation is a nonfigurative and indefinable issue.
4. Interdisciplinary Aspect of Documentation. The compartmentalisation of the technical manuals made by OEM across the Engineering, Electrical and Hull department on board ship affects development of a holistic philosophy for maintenance / upkeep of the equipment. The equipment based on who the user department onboard ship is, suffers from myopic vision for other discipline details in the documentation.
5. Mechanism for Acceptance of Documentation. In a manner similar to acceptance of equipment for meeting its staff requirement by personal trained for the job (Naval Trial Team / CQAE). The documentation too requires to be cleared and reviewed by a second tier of nodal agency with clearly defined staff function to vet and clear OEM as well as the shipyard generated documentation after the draft copy has been submitted to the respective professional directorate / DND.
6. Documentation from Prism of Product Life Cycle Management. The advance made in 21st century in field of documentation is driven by reduction in costing by optimising the product life cycle management (PLM). Though the shipyards are using ERP or software like Tribon/Cartia/AUTOCAD and within Navy we have the next generation of INMMS and ILMS in place. A PLM database is not is place that can cross pollinate between OEM-shipyard-DND-Operational fleet support. They needs to talk to each other not by faxes or email but using concept like SDE & IDE (Shared/Integrated Data environment) which uses data transfer protocols of S1000D by Technical Publications Specification Management Group (TPSMG).
‘Ship is the place to find all the knowledge and technology the humanity has ever created'
The saying above was said of shipbuilding in early 1800, it still holds true! To cross-check and audit such high level of complexity by physical audit of documentation requires aide of IT technology to the human effort.
7.CONCLUSION. The effort to stream line documentation has been happening in navy in burst and sprints But these island of excellence need to spawn / percolate into default practices across shipyards without being driven by the customer/CQAE. The driver for documentation of new construction is to put a definite identifiable cost to each deliverable purchased in form of documentation and then audit it for its receipt. Concurrently we need to seed the infrastructure with adequate technical content and appropriate product life cycle management solution interfaced across DND-shipyard-CQAE-dockyard etc. Finally we should not forget the human factor, he has to be sensitized to the need for implementing better documentation and look beyond just delivery of equipment and making it run till its first failure before realizing importance of documentation.
References:
· Requirement for Preparation of Technical Documentation : DME 452
· Guideline for Preparation of Engg Equipment System List: DME 456
· Preparation of Documentation for Electrical and Electronic Equipment: JSS 0251-01 & EED-S-04-048
· Specification for Electronic Technical Manual (IETM): EED-P-23
· S1000D by Technical Publications Specification Management Group (TPSMG)
· NES 722, MIL Specs 498 and IEEE 12207
CONCEPT TO EXECUTION: BRIDGE GAP ANALYSIS
2. Comprehensive Requirement for Documentation. The defining guideline for delivery of documents addresses the need of user from ship staff as operator to the technician in dockyard at maintenance level. They are enumerated vide DME 452, DME 456, JSS 0251-01 and EED-S-04-048 for data in hard bound manuals. The documentation for delivery in soft copy / IETM format is covered in EED-P-23.
3. Development of Quality in Content of Documentation. The subject of quality of technical content in the deliverable document handed over to the operator first dawns on navy as a customer when the first OPDEF is raised on that equipment. The wording of instructions is a specialized field where technical content editors write and structure a manual or handbook. e.g. There is subtle difference between sketch/layout/ schematic diagram and the correct usage can make difference in ease of comprehension for the man at sea. The nuance of quality content in documentation is a nonfigurative and indefinable issue.
4. Interdisciplinary Aspect of Documentation. The compartmentalisation of the technical manuals made by OEM across the Engineering, Electrical and Hull department on board ship affects development of a holistic philosophy for maintenance / upkeep of the equipment. The equipment based on who the user department onboard ship is, suffers from myopic vision for other discipline details in the documentation.
5. Mechanism for Acceptance of Documentation. In a manner similar to acceptance of equipment for meeting its staff requirement by personal trained for the job (Naval Trial Team / CQAE). The documentation too requires to be cleared and reviewed by a second tier of nodal agency with clearly defined staff function to vet and clear OEM as well as the shipyard generated documentation after the draft copy has been submitted to the respective professional directorate / DND.
6. Documentation from Prism of Product Life Cycle Management. The advance made in 21st century in field of documentation is driven by reduction in costing by optimising the product life cycle management (PLM). Though the shipyards are using ERP or software like Tribon/Cartia/AUTOCAD and within Navy we have the next generation of INMMS and ILMS in place. A PLM database is not is place that can cross pollinate between OEM-shipyard-DND-Operational fleet support. They needs to talk to each other not by faxes or email but using concept like SDE & IDE (Shared/Integrated Data environment) which uses data transfer protocols of S1000D by Technical Publications Specification Management Group (TPSMG).
‘Ship is the place to find all the knowledge and technology the humanity has ever created'
The saying above was said of shipbuilding in early 1800, it still holds true! To cross-check and audit such high level of complexity by physical audit of documentation requires aide of IT technology to the human effort.
7.CONCLUSION. The effort to stream line documentation has been happening in navy in burst and sprints But these island of excellence need to spawn / percolate into default practices across shipyards without being driven by the customer/CQAE. The driver for documentation of new construction is to put a definite identifiable cost to each deliverable purchased in form of documentation and then audit it for its receipt. Concurrently we need to seed the infrastructure with adequate technical content and appropriate product life cycle management solution interfaced across DND-shipyard-CQAE-dockyard etc. Finally we should not forget the human factor, he has to be sensitized to the need for implementing better documentation and look beyond just delivery of equipment and making it run till its first failure before realizing importance of documentation.
References:
· Requirement for Preparation of Technical Documentation : DME 452
· Guideline for Preparation of Engg Equipment System List: DME 456
· Preparation of Documentation for Electrical and Electronic Equipment: JSS 0251-01 & EED-S-04-048
· Specification for Electronic Technical Manual (IETM): EED-P-23
· S1000D by Technical Publications Specification Management Group (TPSMG)
· NES 722, MIL Specs 498 and IEEE 12207
Posts
