An Interactive Electronic Technical Manual (IETM) is a platform to consume and sometimes manage technical documentation. IETMs compress volumes of text into just CD-ROMs or online pages which may include sound and video, and allow readers to locate needed information far more rapidly than in paper manuals. IETMs came into widespread use in the 1990s as technical documentation projects for the aircraft and defense industries grew rapidly and became unmanageable as paper-based publications.
History In the United States, in the late 1970s, the US Military began to look at other ways to produce technical manuals. With the introduction of computer technology it was theorized that moving technical manuals to an electronic format would obtain a cost savings, allow better integration with other logistics systems and improve usability of the technical material. Research was performed in the 1970s and 1980s by all branches of the US military to obtain information on what the goals should be for the electronic technical manuals. Early research was conducted at the Army Communicative Technology Office at Ft. Eustis, the Air Force Human Resources Laboratory (now called Armstrong Laboratory) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and the David Taylor Research Center (now called Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division) in Bethesda, Maryland. Programs developed by the Navy, Navy Technical Information Presentation System (NTIPS) and the Air Force, Computer-based Maintenance Aid System (CMAS), were used along with user surveys, technological analysis and design studies to come up with the basic concepts for IETMs. Based on field tests with technicians maintaining military equipment, the tests found that performance was greatly improved and dramatic improvement occurred for inexperienced technicians. One questionnaire found that 90% of the technicians preferred electronic manuals and found them easier to use. Other examples of the improvements from IETMs included:
Navy - 100% of the technicians, experience and inexperienced, found a fault when using electronic material compared to 58% when the technicians used paper manuals Air Force - 100% fault isolation for experience and inexperienced technicians using electronic material compared to 75% success rate when using paper Because of the positive results, the Department of Defense identified the need for standardization of the IETM development. In 1987 a joint military and commercial group was formed consisting of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Computer-assisted Acquisition and Logistics Support (OSD CALS) and Aerospace Industries Association (AIA). This group developed concepts for IETM authoring, IETM presentation and data interchange which were used as the basis for standard development. In 1989 the US Navy, Air Force and Army formed an ad-hoc group to determine the best way to create standards for IETMS. Input from the use of NTIPS and CMAS, later renamed Integrated Maintenance Information System(IMIS), were used along with input from the CALS Industry Steering Group (ISG) Paperless Technical Manual Committee, the Navy A-12 Program, The Air Force ATF Program, and the Army PMDE Program's IETM Style Guide as a starting point for a working group for IETM standards. The group came out with the first formally issued set of standards in 1992. By 1994, Senior R&D Engineer Michael Weldon, working on behalf of LORAL Corporation, developed a demonstration White Paper IETM describing the use of an IETM utilizing an eyeglass Monitor interfaced with a portable belt mounted CD Player for hands free use by technicians in the field, i.e. as when working on a tower 60 feet AGL. The Tri-Service group came up with three standards:
MIL-M-87268. Manuals, Interactive Electronic Technical: General Content, Style, Format, and User-Interaction Requirements For. MIL-D-87269. Data Base, Revisable: Interactive Electronic Technical Manuals, For The Support Of. MIL-Q-87270. Quality Assurance (QA) Program: Interactive Electronic Technical Manuals (IETMs) and Associated Technical Information, Requirements For. The Tri-Service Group also came up with a roadmap that went through to 1997 for revision of the standards and the creation of documentation explaining the standards.
IETM vs IETP A synonymous term for IETM is Interactive Electronic Technical Publication (IETP) and whilst some would say one is a single manual and the other a suite of publications, in reality this is not true. The difference in definition is more of geography or route into electronic documentation. With the standard being first defined in the USA as IETM, understandably the Americas mostly use that term. It is also widespread in Asia and particularly India. However, those nations that come more from an S1000D background tend to use IETP - so this is largely Europe, and emerging nations new to electronic publications.
The Classes of Electronic Technical Manuals The ETM classes defined by the Tri-Service IETM Working Group are as follows. Note, Class 0 is included for completeness to define a full spectrum; and Class 5 is intentionally left open ended to include future innovations not yet available.
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