Documentation Standards
Introduction
June 2011 marks a point of shifting the focus to professional documentation standard development at Factor e Farm. We are at the stage that such documentation is not only indispensable for production runs at Factor e Farm, but also for replication in other places worldwide. Check our Fabrication Procedure Standards.
Documentation Standards
We propose the following procedure for developing documentation based on prototyping work at Factor e Farm.
- Upload all media to FTP repository
- Publish detailed fabrication procedure on wiki
- Fill in with pictures, jpg of CAD files, and links to actual CAD and CAM files in file repository
- Develop an instructional video based on wiki fabrication procedure and any additional material from media FTP repository
Documentation at Other Locations
As other locations come online, similar procedures should be implemented to facilitate contributions to the overall project.
Design Designations and Document Identifiers
As GVCS and other OSE tools mature, it will become difficult to keep documentation organized. For identification purposes, a standard design iteration naming convention is proposed. Each GVCS tool should be assigned a standard set of initials, LT for LifeTrac as an example. Product iterations (models) can be either identified as P1, P2, etc. or given a descriptive name such as Rear Mounted Engine. Thus, the current LifeTrac-2 would be referred to as a LT-P2 for documentation identification purposes. It is quite possible that several design iterations are needed within a product model, thus the third design of the LifeTrac-2 would be referred to as LT-P2-D3. The first design of the rear mounted engine could be known as LT-REM-D1.
The main point of this identifications scheme is to create a name space that allows all documentation to be grouped together for a single design iteration. Thus, the video that shows how to fabricate the back right wheel mount panel can be called "LT-REM-D1-Back-Rear-Wheel-Mount-Panel.wmv" and the related 3D CAD render could be called "LT-REM-D1-Back-Rear-Wheel-Mount-Panel=CAD-v2.png". Note that this is version 3 of the render.