A Technical Communication Story
Scenario 1 without 3DVIA Composer
Your engineering staff has spent considerable time designing your product using your CAD software and creating all of the drawings. One of the engineers is finishing up the final details. The rest are starting to work on a new project. You can sit back and take a break and let manufacturing start making the product.
While you’re drinking your coffee the phone rings and Joe, the Sales Manager, wants to get some pictures of the new product to use for sales literature. He needs some illustrations with dimensions, cutaway images showing internal features, and an animation showing how the product works now that the design is finalized. He needs the pictures in the next couple of days so he can get the literature to the printer in time. You tell him you’ll see what you can do and will get back to him later. The engineers are the only ones who can make those images and an animation from their models but they’re already busy on the new project. I guess you’ll have to pull someone off and get these done. But it’s going to put the new project behind.
As soon as you hang up the phone, Sally, your Production Manager, comes in your office and tells you they need more information on how the product is assembled. Because of the anticipated demand, the company has hired new employees and they have to get up to speed quickly. She wants to know if there is a way to create some kind of assembly video so the new employees would be able to be productive immediately. You know the engineers could create an animation using the CAD models but that would mean pulling another one off the new project. And creating an animation that way is time consuming.
After she leaves and you’re trying to figure out how to get all of this done, the phone rings again. It’s Pete, one of the major account managers. He has been talking to one of your biggest customers and they would like to see better documentation showing how to install the product and how to do maintenance. They will be sending your products overseas and they really need documentation for non-English speakers that doesn’t require much translation. He wants to know if your engineers can create some installation and maintenance 
documents.
Just think, a few minutes ago, life was good. Now what are you going to do? This phone rings – it’s Pete again. One more thing, the customer would like to be able to order spare parts online. Is it possible to create exploded views so the customer could click on the part they need and add to their cart? Thanks!
ARRGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Scenario 2 with 3DVIA Composer
Your engineers are using their CAD software to design and create the parts and assemblies for your new product. They are still in the design phase and the final product is still a few weeks away but things are going well.
Joe, the Sales Manager, stops in to go over some ideas for literature to help sell the product. He would like dimensioned views and images showing internal features. You tell him about this great software called 3DVIA Composer that can take the current CAD data from your engineers and create 2D technical illustrations with dimensions and call-outs, and the high resolution images of the internal features. What’s great is that the images can be created now by non-engineers so Joe can lay out the literature while the engineers are still working on the design. When the design is complete the images can be updated with the latest CAD data. Joe doesn’t have to wait until after final design.
At the weekly design review meeting, Sally, the Production Manager, brings up that they will need to hire new employees for the anticipated demand. She is concerned about how long it will take them to understand the assembly process. You let everyone know how 3DVIA Composer can create assembly instructions using the CAD models your engineers are developing. The video can show the steps to assembly the product and can be interactive. The animation can be created to stop at certain points in the process and when the employee is ready to move on to the next step they just need to click on button on the screen. The animations can show the tools required, names and part numbers of the components, written instructions, arrows, and parts fading in and out to make the instructions easy to follow. Anyone who has learned how to use the 3DVIA Composer software can use the CAD data created by the engineers to create any number of assembly videos or instructions. These can be worked on now and updated as the CAD data is modified. That way they will be ready to go when the designs are finalized.
When Pete, one of the major account managers, calls, he tells you about some concerns from one of his biggest accounts. They send the products overseas and they spend a lot of money translating installation and maintenance information into other languages. Do you have any ideas? You tell Pete how 3DVIA Composer can be used to create animations that the user can step through that don’t require much text. You tell him about 
the animations that will be created for manufacturing. These assembly and maintenance videos can be an outgrowth of those. The whole idea of “A picture is worth a thousand words.” can be captured in these videos.
Pete also mentions how customers would like to be able to have an interactive way to order spare parts online. You show Pete something you’ve been working on using 3DVIA Composer. You created an exploded view with balloons for each part along with a Bill of Material. When you click on the part in the assembly or the BOM, it is linked to a page saved as HTML which shows the part, a description, and a price. A link on the page could then be tied to some e-commerce software to allow the user to purchase that part. Pete tells you that’s perfect!
You sit down with a cup of coffee knowing that things are under control. While your engineers continue working on the final design, you’re satisfied that sales, production, and the customers will get the documentation they need when your engineers are done.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!
