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Re: Technical Communication in Manufacturing Industry
Subject:Re: Technical Communication in Manufacturing Industry From:tarage -at- bellsouth -dot- net (imac) To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Sat, 23 Jul 2005 11:36:24 -0400
Anindyo Gupta wrote:
>
>Hi all,
>
>I am an aspiring tech writer and was going through several tech comm
>mailing lists and sites lately. I understand, tech comm has become an
>integral function of IT and Aerospace industry. Does anyone have a
>clue why other manufacturing industries have not made it (tech comm) a
>part of their operation? My concern is Power and Industrial Automation
I can't speak for the heavies, but I used to work for a small business
in the water management industry (think: wastewater and fresh water
plants). At the time, I was the PLC programmer / web designer / tester
and O&M writer. That was where I got my start in tech writing, actually,
by starting from the structure they had and improving it. Granted, even
there, the tech writing was last on the totem pole, but the size of the
company afforded a lot of contact with customers. One thing that I
discovered was that there were levels of users (something that's stuck
with me to this day) -- we had operators, technicians, and more advanced
folk. Often they were best treated by multiple manuals.
Anyhow, long story short? The company I worked for wasn't on the cutting
edge of anything (sadly), but even they recognized that good docs made the
customer happy. I think the heavies may be suffering from institutional
paralysis, but most smaller operations have a clue. The advancing
computerization of the industry makes documentation even more relevant
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