Help2

["William B. MacLeod" <WBMACLE -at- ACCUSORT -dot- COM>]

I recently sent a message to the list about how technical writers get
their information and what they are responsible for.  I appreciate the
responses I received, but I think I need to clarify my question.  Here it
goes.

I am the Technical Publications Manager and I have seven years of
experiance.  I work for a bar code scanner manufacturer.  The majority
of my contacts are engineers.  There are five writers responsible for
product documentation, systems (software) documentation,
presentations, prorposals, data sheets, product catalogs, and any
other miscellaneous documentation.

Through the years, the Technical Publications Department has not
been taken seriously or given much respect at all.  I can handle this.
I think it goes with the territory.  I am attempting to make our
department more a part of the product.  If a product currently comes to
production.  We may not get a manual out until 500 or so units ship.
This is unexceptable.  Because of this we created pre-installation
manuals, preliminary data sheets, and product information
summaries.  In my opinion, a bunch of paper that would not be
needed if we just got the manual done on time to begin with.

I know this sounds like complaining, but it is not.  Through years of
frustration, I finally have the power to do something about it, and what
I am asking for is ideas of how your product manual development fits
in with your companies product development cycle?  Currently our
product manual development is out of the loop.  I need to know just
where to put it in the loop.

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William MacLeod                                 wbmacle -at- accusort -dot- attmail -dot- com
Technical Publications Manager           +1 215.721.5093
Accu-Sort Systems

The opinions in this message are my own
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