Oxford Instruments Plasma Technology (OIPT) – documentation for complex scientific and industrial products
When did we work with OIPT?
Since 2012
What did we do?
In the 14 years that we have been working with OIPT, we have provided end-to-end documentation services, including content migration, supporting product launches, localization, and tools consultancy.
Key stats
3di provided
2000
Manual sets delivered.
5100
Pages migrated from FrameMaker to Flare.
The Impact
- OIPT has had a trusted documentation partner in 3di for over 14 years.
- We have provided specific technical writing expertise for Oxford Instruments Plasma, Ion, and Atomic Layer Deposition systems.
What was the context for 3di helping OIPT?
OIPT designs and produces customisable tools for leading industrial and scientific research communities. They produce etch and deposition plasma tools, which are used in the manufacturing of silicon chips, solar cells, and LEDs.
Unlike most other customers, OIPT produce a bespoke manual for every product shipped. They needed an expert authoring partner, who would understand their products, and would implement an efficient and consistent technical content strategy for their documentation going forward.
The challenges OIPT
Complex, bespoke products, and frequently changing delivery cycles
Each manufactured system needed bespoke and clear documentation, delivered within a specific deadline, in order to be shipped on time. The technical authors would need to interpret complex information from the engineers, convey it clearly to the product user, including all necessary safety information, and deliver within short, regular delivery cycles.
OIPT also needed this documentation to be translated and localized into several languages, such as German, Dutch, and Italian, so a documentation partner with in-house localization capabilities was required.
Are you facing similar challenges with your documentation?
The solution 3di created for OIPT
The 3di team:
- Provided a full audit of OIPT’ current documentation, and created a full Content Operations plan, including tools consultation, content migration, authoring, and localization.
- Oversaw the migration from the old method of using Microsoft Word, to using the more structured and controllable authoring tool – Adobe FrameMaker.
- Created templates, styles, tags, and structures in FrameMaker to speed up the authoring of bespoke manuals.
- Created training modules for authors to learn about and keep up to date on OIPT products.
- Developed a streamlined workflow to analyse each product’s configuration and quickly understand what information is required in each manual.
- Applied SEMI standards for technical documentation to ensure OIPT meet its compliance obligations.
- Developed workflows and procedures to ensure a timely delivery of the required documentation in accordance with shipping deadlines.
- Provided translation and localization consultation and services in several languages, including French, German, Dutch, and Italian.
- In 2025, migrated the entire documentation suite from Adobe FrameMaker to MadCap Flare, and helped the customer design a streamlined git workflow for a variety of authoring scenarios.
- Helped train the customer’s in-house authoring team to use, maintain, and expand their product documentation.
The results of the collaboration between 3di and OIPT
Improved technical documentation, on-time product shipping
- 3di now provides a full end-to-end content operations service for OIPT, including technical authoring, translation, and tools consultancy.
- Technical documentation delivered on time to ensure shipping dates are met.
- Consistent quality manuals written to the SEMI standard.
- For over a decade, OIPT has had an outsourced technical authoring partner that understands the products and can communicate easily with the engineers.