Planning and Documenting the Assembly Process in 3D
Most machine and plant engineers still plan and document the assembly of their systems
using the object in question, in other words they assemble the system in its entirety or in parts
prior to delivery so that they can properly document the process. New photos and illustrations
are often created for the assembly instructions instead of using existing material from the engineering department. This approach is not only time consuming and labor intensive but also requires an unnecessarily large amount of space. The main problem, however, is that the technicians cannot start planning assembly and creating documentation until the system components have been completed, and by then time is usually short. As a result, changes made while the system is in operation are not systematically incorporated into the documentation, thus making maintenance more difficult. A PROSTEP solution for 3D assembly planning provides an alternative: documentation is converted into the 3D PDF format, thus ensuring that an up to-date version is always available.
