Pilatus PC-24 will receive 3D interactive parts catalogs and instructions for continued airworthiness

9 November 2021

Pilatus Aircraft Ltd uses RapidAuthor for Teamcenter for the production of interactive Illustrated Parts Data and the item identification part of Structural Repair Manuals for its latest model, the PC-24 Super Versatile Jet.

Pilatus is a Swiss company that develops, produces, and sells aircraft to customers around the world. The Technical Publications department decided to go digital, clear format of documentation, that facilitates the maintenance of the plane. Another goal was to increase the efficiency of the authoring process. To achieve these goals the company introduced considerable changes to the existing system environment: PLM – tech pubs’ authoring software – CSDB. Pilatus chose RapidAuthor for creating documentation because this tool is integrated with the Teamcenter PLM system and its functionality can be customised according to customer requirements.

With RapidAuthor for Teamcenter, technical authors work in a single PLM environment, they can easily trace links to source engineering data, verify the information and ensure that documentation is more accurate and up-to-date.

The new solution allows the merging of two previously separated processes – compiling and illustrating. Authors can work with 2D, 3D, text, and animations in one single environment without switching between different tools. This, as well as enhanced functionality, has reduced the development time for Illustrated Parts Data (IPD) and Structural Repair Manual (SRM) by around 40%.

The customisation has significantly automated the tracking of changes in source data, reduced the time required to update documentation, and accelerated the search of data modules. This has reduced production time and increased the efficiency of the technical publication team by around 30%.

New interactive IPD and SRM that replaced traditional 2D documentation are available on MyPilatus Customer Portal and Supplier Portal. The feedback from the service centers is positive: 3D interactive documentation is easy to handle for workshop employees. From now on, all new aircraft models will be delivered to customers with 3D documentation.

“The RapidAuthor software is easy to use and friendly. Typically, when you are going to switch to new software you may confront the users with new technology and the users who work with the old tool, like 2D-oriented technical publications. I don’t remember having these problems using RapidAuthor,” recalled Cristopher Alcaide Amrein, Team Leader Technical ICT, Pilatus. “We are always looking to be faster, better quality, and easy to handle. We talk a lot with our business, IT, and our technical partners to find out a better solution together and discuss how we can be better in our daily work.”

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