Let’s talk about how technical documentation impacts field service procedures, high costs of inaccurate technical information, the root causes of service failures, and how to achieve high field service productivity and effectiveness.
Many of the fundamental issues in service occur due to inaccurate service information and technical documentation that is difficult to understand.
We have all been in a situation, at least once, that involved failure to deliver a service as promised. Why? It’s because all brands and businesses make promises! But the truth is… service issues happen
When service fails to deliver on promises, or a buyer experiences poor customer service, the result almost always ends with lost customers, canceled subscriptions, and tarnished brand reputation.
The impact of a service failure can be devastating. Let’s talk about the root causes impacting service issues and failures
The impacts of service issues
The greatest influence on service almost always has to do with one thing; technical documentation. By technical documentation I am referring to tech pubs, standard operating procedure documents, service instructions, maintenance manuals, guides, work instructions, procedures, bulletins, etc.
I’m talking about anything and everything that is provided to help assist and guide service technicians. Many of the fundamental issues in service occur due to technical documentation, let’s talk about why.
Technical Documentation and Field Service
Today many field service and manufacturing organizations rely on traditional time-intensive methods to develop and deploy technical documentation such as service procedures, work instructions, guides, manuals, etc.
But the fact is – oftentimes the tech pubs, guides, and manuals that are created, aren’t even read (or in some cases even used) by field service representatives for which they were designed!
In addition, technician instruction manuals and documentation designed to be used in field service are often out-of-date. This is due to the high maintenance and distribution costs to create, maintain and produce continually up-to-date field service documentation.
This issue compounds as products become more and more complex in response to ever increasing customer demands for innovation and customization.
This rise in complex products has resulted in complex service and maintenance procedures, affecting and influencing inaccuracies in technical writing and documentation. As the demand for complex maintenance and service procedures increase, technician efficiency decreases due to more time being spent searching for the correct service information in a format that can be used on the field. This often results in repair and maintenance delays.
When service technicians encounter unfamiliar problems and don’t have reliable service information to solve a problem, the need for repeat service visits increases. There are many major negative consequences from these situations.
For example, a customer might experience equipment downtime. This downtime impacts both the service provider, as it inflates the cost of service, as well as the customer, as they lose productivity.
The high costs of inefficient field service
For you, as a service provider, the consequences of poor service information, complex products, and poor technician efficiency can drastically impact your costs of service in a number of ways.
For starters, let’s assume you work with service contracts. Service contracts often contain elements such as equipment up-time clauses. In the case you were to unintentionally breach one of these ‘set clauses’, it’s fair to assume the organization would face undesirable penalties and costs.
Take a deep breath. All is not lost. The added costs from inefficient service strategies are completely avoidable!
Repeat field service visits also drastically increase business costs. Multiple repeat visits to service products quickly increase costs and become very expensive. This is why many organizations seek to avoid repeat service visits at all cost.
A rarely considered cost-driver for service stems from difficulties comprehending poorly written, inaccessible, and out-of-date technical documentation.
When service technicians are unable to easily identify which spare parts are required, they often order multiple parts in hope that one will be correct. This results in high part returns, and handling costs. Not to mention, the need to hold more parts in stock from inflated orders (the bull whip effect), also affects parts inventory.
The skills gap is also increasing the cost of inefficient service.
“Faced with continuing economic expansion and retirement of baby boomers, the US manufacturing industry is looking at a potential shortage of 2.4 million workers in the next decade.” – 2018 Deloitte & The Manufacturing Institute skills gap study
To put it in perspective, a large portion of our workforce is approaching retirement soon. This is causing the skills gap to widen. With the loss of tribal knowledge, access to consumable expert knowledge becomes increasingly necessary.
New and inexperienced technicians have repeat service visits which cause an organization to face higher training costs, while overburdened experienced staff members are forced to train and pick up the slack for newer employees.
All of these things impact customer satisfaction. These conditions damage service reputations for both an organizations product, as well as, service contracts. Most importantly, all of these scenarios impact an organizations ability to retain customers and garner repeat business.
Sometimes you need to break down the barriers between product development and operations.
How to gain high service productivity and effectiveness
In order to obtain high technician productivity and effectiveness you must re-evaluate your service methods and procedures
Increase technician comprehension with accurate AR work instructions
To increase technician comprehension, look into concepts to create accurate, in-context augmented reality (AR) work instructions that overlay digital information onto a physical product.
Establish accurate part identification
Consider implementing accurate AR experiences so part identification, replacement and ordering are easy and accurate.
Enable remote real-time work instructions
Enable expert technicians to give remote, real-time guidance on physical objects using assisted reality tools like Vuforia Chalk.
All of these help service organizations create a more flexible, agile, workforce. These changes result in increased equipment uptime and productivity. They result in happier customers and more empowered workers.
Most importantly – you can start implementing these benefits today. All the technology currently exists. We would love to work with you and your organization to understand your service operations goals and map a path forward.
In today’s fast-paced digital environment, the demand for accurate, consistent, and timely product information is paramount. Traditional methods of technical documentation, often reliant on manual processes and disparate tools, fall short in meeting these demands. This is where PTC Arbortext emerges as a game-changer. It offers a dynamic publishing solution that streamlines the creation, management, and delivery of technical content.
The Pitfalls of Traditional Documentation Methods
Many businesses rely on one or two technical writers to collect all required technical and digital information needed to create technical and marketing publications. Most of this effort is manual, using the tried and true method of emailing, calling, and walking down the hall to bug technical resources for information or a screen grab; over and over. Then the information is created using a one-and-done single-instance authoring software like Adobe FrameMaker, Adobe InDesign, or Microsoft Word.
This is a problem for a number of reasons, including:
- Inconsistencies and Errors: Manual data collection can lead to outdated or incorrect information permeating through various documents.
- Inefficiencies: Repetitive tasks and lack of automation slow down the documentation process, delaying product releases.
- Scalability Issues: As products become more complex, managing documentation manually becomes increasingly untenable.
Just think of everywhere incorrect information could live if an update is missed. Web sites, user manual libraries, manufacturing instructions, service instructions, printed manuals, marketing literature, and the list goes on. This can increase the risk of providing out-of-date or inaccurate information to customers, manufacturing personnel, and service technicians.
Embracing Dynamic Publishing with Arbortext
PTC Arbortext offers a comprehensive solution to these challenges by enabling dynamic publishing. This method automates and integrates the entire documentation lifecycle. Key benefits include:
- Single Source of Truth: Centralize content to ensure consistency across all documentation.
- Automated Updates: Link documentation directly to product data, allowing automatic updates when changes occur.
- Multi-Channel Delivery: Publish content across various formats and platforms without redundant efforts
Core Components of the Arbortext Suite
When arguing for Arbortext, there’s strength in overarching capabilities. However, there’s also the power and precision of its individual components. Like many other PTC product lines, Arbortext boasts a suite of several integrated tools. This robust ecosystem of tools work together to streamline structured content creation, styling, and publishing. This empowers technical teams to do more, faster, and with fewer errors. These extensions have been designed to enhance the documentation process. They include:
- Arbortext Editor: A powerful, XML-based authoring tool designed for creating structured content. It supports real-time validation, ensuring content conforms to required standards as it’s written. This not only improves accuracy but also reduces the need for post-creation corrections.
- Arbortext Styler: A stylesheet design application that lets users visually create and manage styles for multiple output formats. Publishing to PDF, HTML, or EPUB? Styler allows organizations to control formatting rules without needing to write code, greatly simplifying the publishing process.
- Arbortext Publishing Engine: The automation hub of the suite, this engine assembles, formats, and publishes content from Arbortext Editor using predefined styles and templates. It eliminates manual tasks and ensures consistent, repeatable publishing workflows across the enterprise.
Together, these tools form a tightly integrated publishing solution. This solution enables organizations to maintain consistency, scale their documentation efforts, and reduce operational risk. Whether you’re a single author or managing a global documentation team, the Arbortext suite equips you with the foundation to build and deliver content that’s smart, structured, and future-ready.
Integration with PTC Windchill for Enhanced Content Management
One of the most compelling reasons to argue for Arbortext is its seamless integration with PTC Windchill, a leading product lifecycle management (PLM) system. This connection allows organizations to manage both product data and technical content within a single, unified platform. By linking Arbortext with Windchill, companies gain tighter control over content versioning, reuse, and approval processes, which is critical in regulated industries or highly complex product environments.
Windchill serves as a single source of truth, ensuring that content creators always work with the most up-to-date product data and documentation. This reduces the risk of inconsistencies between product updates and technical materials—whether it’s a service manual, part catalog, or training content. Integration also supports granular access control, workflow automation, and traceability, helping teams stay audit-ready and in compliance.
Together, Arbortext and Windchill form a powerful digital thread that connects engineering, manufacturing, and documentation teams across the entire product lifecycle. This integration not only accelerates content creation and delivery but also reinforces data integrity and operational efficiency, making it a cornerstone argument in favor of adopting Arbortext for dynamic publishing.
Real-World Impact: Efficiency and Accuracy
When arguing for Arbortext, it’s essential to look beyond features and focus on real-world outcomes. Organizations that implement Arbortext experience measurable gains in both operational efficiency and content accuracy. By automating manual processes like formatting, layout, and publication, teams spend less time on repetitive tasks and more time on high-value content creation. This leads to faster documentation cycles and reduced time-to-market for products.
Dynamic publishing ensures that information is consistent across all deliverables, minimizing the risk of errors or outdated content reaching end users. Technical writers can generate multilingual, multi-format documents in a fraction of the time it would take using traditional tools, and updates can be made globally with just a few clicks.
Ultimately, Arbortext isn’t just about creating content—it’s about transforming how content is managed, updated, and delivered throughout the organization. These efficiency and accuracy gains drive real business value, making a strong, results-based case for integrating Arbortext into your enterprise content strategy.
Making the Case for Arbortext
In an era where information accuracy and speed are critical, arguing for Arbortext becomes a matter of strategic importance. Making the move from manual technical publications to what we just described allows tech writers to focus on optimization of publishing methods rather than data collection and integration. It helps insure overall accuracy of product data throughout the company and in the marketplace. By transitioning to dynamic publishing with PTC Arbortext, organizations can overcome the limitations of traditional documentation methods, ensuring that their technical content is accurate, consistent, and delivered efficiently across all platforms.
