Levels historically indicated increasing functionality from scanned manuals (Level 1) to fully interactive, database driven systems (Level 4).
- IETM or Interactive electronic Technical Manual, as the name indicates, it is a Manual which is interactive and in the form of electronic/digital.
- Then PDF file is also electronic/digital, will that be called IETM?
- Yes, undoubtedly PDF is also IETM. It’s Level 2 IETM.
- I need to give an example so that u can understand better about Levels. Every one of us must have played digital games. In that, we need to cross various levels. The first level would be simple, the second little difficult, and 3rd level more challenging and 4th Level tough.
- Question is, why this documentation is required?
- Along with phone or vehicle or any household gadgets, we get a user manual because, in case we have any trouble while using, we can refer to the manual and resolve the issue, without connecting to OEM or service center as might not be available 24 X7.
- Hence, these documents should be in simple language and easy to navigate, and easy to reach any point in few clicks.
- The bigger the system/device the more pages are required and more variety of manuals are required. i.e. User manual, Operator manual, Maintainer manual, Spare list, and so on.
- If some fault has occurred in the system, then the operator may need to refer to more than one manual and it is very difficult to refer to multiple hard copies. Even it is not easy to refer to multiple PDFs and refer to the issue as there is no linkage between all PDFs.
- The purpose of the Manual is to guide the operator. If the manual is more dynamic that will be easy for the operator to refer and resolve the issue.
- Level 4 and to some extent Level 3 will be very handy and very fast. All the documents are converted to a database, hence searching and inter-document referring will become easier.
- I.e. a user can search for a problem and easily reach that particular page in seconds and also can see all the related topics to that topic which is being displayed.
- Simple is Level 1 and advanced is Level -4
- Indian Defense wants all the equipment to be delivered along with IETMs since 2014.
- Based on the complexity, Level 3 or Level 4 is asked in the RFQ document. Since 2018, mostly Level 4 is asked to deliver.