Technical Documentation as a Service – An Approach for Integrating Editorial and Engineering Processes of Machinery and Plant Engineers

Delivery of technical documentation of manufacturing facilities is still mandatory for machinery and plant engineers as part of the compliance with legal regulations. In addition, current research and development indicate that digital technical documentation can be used as informative support for operating staff if contents are provided context-sensitive. Despite the importance and potentials of technical documentation for the engineering process, an integration of editorial staff into this process is not state of the art.In this paper the authors propose a reference implementation for technical documentation developed within the collaborative research project Cyber System Connector in order to fill this gap both technically and organizationally. The aim is to redesign technical documentation into a service for all participants in product and production development. This new approach is based on a CPS-supported process of creating technical documentation and a virtual representation which serves as a platform for knowledge management in machinery and plant engineering. The benefits of implementing the proposed documentation strategy along the supply chain of manufacturing facilities are depicted by chosen application scenarios.