Situation
As the world’s leading provider of process control and yield management solutions, this company partners with customers around the world to develop ultra-modern inspection and metrology technologies. These technologies serve the semiconductor, data storage, LED, photovoltaic, and other related nano-electronics industries. Headquartered in Milpitas, California, this organization created superior solutions for its customers for more than 35 years. With over 5,800 employees globally and over 25 dedicated customer operations and service centers around the world, this organization is located in the US, Europe, Middle East, and Asia-Pacific.
Challenge
This technology organization is continually refreshing their product offerings with new hardware and software systems. In order to keep their workforce up to speed on these new systems and products, they were faced with the challenge of mapping out new procedures and creating the associated documentation for all of these systems and products. The company realized that they didn’t have the staff available to continually develop these new procedures and documentation due to high fluctuations in demand for procedure and documentation development. It was extremely difficult to forecast when employees would need to be allocated for these tasks, with the added impact of taking these resources away from their normal responsibilities. There were both short and long-term cost implications because of resource utilization requirements.
Solution
GP Strategies® provided a variable workforce solution that allowed the company to incur development cost only when required to produce procedure and documentation deliverables. GP Strategies provided highly experienced technical writers who were extremely familiar with the content and material they were creating. Through collaboration, GP Strategies was involved in every step of the documentation development process, including information gathering, interviewing of subject matter experts, and original authoring.
GP Strategies met these procedure and documentation development needs through a blended approach of providing on-site support as well as remote resources from both North America and India. Some of the areas that required procedure and documentation development by GP Strategies included:
- Installations
- Operations
- Startup Services
- Hardware Systems
- Software Applications
- User Manuals
- Preventive Maintenance
- Corrective Maintenance
Results
GP Strategies co-shore variable workforce model includes operations in San Jose, California and field locations in Chennai, India.
On-Site Technical Writers
- GP Strategies recruited and retained highly experienced technical writers who were housed onsite with the client to enable face-to-face interaction with engineers and subject matter experts.
- All development was performed using client templates and managed through the customer’s document management system.
Remote Resources
- GP Strategies augmented development requirements by utilizing their technical writing team in Chennai, India.
- GP Strategies provided a reduced cost model by blending North American and Indian rates.
Summary
GP Strategies was able to assist the company with their variable demands for procedure and documentation development by providing a flexible and financially feasible solution. Combined with GP Strategies experienced technical writers, the company’s workforce was able to focus on their core responsibilities while leveraging GP Strategies for procedure and documentation support.
