Creating Parts Manuals with Framemaker is a Thing of the Past

Companies looking for a more efficient and automated way to create their Parts Manuals reach out to us at OEMDocs, and I am often surprised to learn that their current authoring process involves Adobe Framemaker.

Now don't get me wrong - there was a time when Framemaker may have been a great way to create professional parts manuals, but it's now 2024 and given all of the improvements in technology, bandwidth, servers, and software, there are better ways for equipment manufacturers and Technical Publications' Teams to efficiently create Parts Manuals.

First - I must disclose that as the Founder of OEMDocs, I do have an interest in offering OEMs services and software to improve their Parts Manuals publications' processes, but that's not my motivation for writing this article. There are other software companies in the market and if their software works well and can improve your process, by all means go for it. I'm creating this article in the hopes that companies who are currently using Framemaker to create their parts manuals find their way here and can learn that there are better ways to create parts manuals in terms of authoring time, search functionality, part supercession and more.

Google cites Adobe Framemaker as "a document processor designed for writing and editing large or complex documents, including structured documents". While this is true, its features and capabilities are a bit too generalized; meaning, it's a tool for creating various types of documents. What it is not is a specific type of software or tool geared towards creating parts manuals in an efficient manner. Although Framemaker can be used to technically create parts catalogs, I liken it to creating a report using Adobe Photoshop. Sure - with Adobe Photoshop you can draw rectangles and circles with colors to make a bar or pie chart, add in some text and after some time you'll have a report. But using software specifically designed to create a report is much faster, more efficient, and it handles changes and updates with ease. This is how I see the Framemaker problem - Yes you can create parts manuals using it, but it's not much better than using Photoshop to manually draw up a report.

If you or your company is using Framemaker to create parts manuals, do any of these issues sound familiar? :

• It can take up to 40 hours to create a single parts manual (or longer).
• You're unable to supercede a part or assembly across your database of manuals.
• There is no search capability across manuals.
• There is no parts ordering capability.
• The manuals are not interactive.
• The final deliverable is simply a PDF.

Although I can only speak as to how we solved each of these issues within our software, there are other Parts Manual Software Providers on the market. I'm not familiar with all of them (but I do have hands-on experience with some of them), and the ones I've used address at least some of the issues outlined above.

Even if your parts manual has 100 assemblies or more - a good parts catalog software solution should allow you to create the full parts manual within a few hours, or if the software is really good, perhaps within minutes. If you're spending 40, 80 or more hours creating a parts manual, there's definately something wrong with the software, and perhaps the process can be improved.

A parts manual software solution can substantially reduce authoring time with the following:

• Ensuring a nice hierarchical structure for the Parts Manual, from the top level assembly, all the way down to its parts.
• All Assemblies, Sub-Assemblies and Components (for an entire structure) should be re-used. This means if you have 2 parts manuals that share the same exact Engine, the entire Engine should be re-used and no additional work required. If 90% of the Engine is the same but 10% is different, the software should re-use the exact 90%, and indicate the 10% that's required, and in which location of the manual!
• All publishing work should be done within the software - no external software or downloads should be required, and all edits and updates should be done in true WYSIWYG style.

To summarize - you should be able to create a full Parts Manual, start to finish, within a couple of hours, and sometimes even within minutes.

Below is an example of a Parts Manual we created in less than an hour:

Framemaker manages documents and templates; it does not manage parts and assemblies.

Parts Manual software solutions often have the ability to supercede parts. This allows you to quickly make a replacement to a superceded part in all locations necessary. However, you should also consider whether or not the software allows you to supercede the assembly and / or its structure. If your company supercedes components or assemblies, having the ability to supercede that assembly or component is highly desireable, as having to go back and modify all previously created manuals with the new assembly or component is exactly what it sounds like - a lot of work!

Framemaker is a file-based system - it lacks cloud capabilities, and more importantly, it has no central database that technical publications' authors and users can search across.

All modern parts manual software solutions should be cloud based, offer a central database with robust and fast, real-time search capabilities. Authors should be able to quickly locate information about manuals, parts, missing components or assemblies and more. End-users should be able to search for their parts, assemblies and machines and be able to find and order parts within seconds.

Framemaker parts manuals are typically not interactive, typically don't have hotpoints (although sometimes they can), and they aren't web-based. The final product given to the customer is typically a PDF.

If you want your customers and/or dealers to have a much better experience when it comes to locating and ordering parts (which by the way, should increase part sales!), the parts manual should be interactive and it should have hotpoints (ideally - autogenerated!). Customers and Dealers should be able to access these manuals via a modern cloud-based web application, which can also ascertain user behavior, keep track of orders and which parts are typically ordered together, it can include warranty information, other technical manuals, shop cart capabilities and more. In the end - all of this is a much more modern and professional way to deliver your parts manuals to customers and dealers, whom if today are only receiving a PDF, will likely thank you for these new features!

I've been working with parts catalogs for nearly 15 years. I've been playing tennis for 24 years, chess for 32 years, and recently took up Armwrestling (Yeah - it's a thing)!

So how'd I get into Parts Manuals? Well - I initially started out as a member of a Technical Publications Team for a large Mining Equipment Manufacturer. That's where I started using and building parts catalogs and earned my first stripes.

Shortly thereafter, I worked for a Software Company that built their own Parts Catalog Software Solution. As a member of the Professional Services Team, I traveled the country and trained customers, I migrated tens of thousands of parts catalogs, and I worked with the largest enterprise customers to ensure success.

But between personal experience and feedback I received across many industries, it was clear to me that there were still many issues within the parts catalog software space, and in 2019 - I embarked on a mission to create the world's best parts catalog software. 4 Years later we completed and released it, and now it's my honor to work with equipment manufacturers and bring them the solutions I wish I had when I was building parts catalogs a decade ago!

If you'd like to contact me directly - simply click here to see my contact info. I hid it behind a simple captcha click to prevent spam and bots!