Tesco

Challenge

In 2010, Tesco, a global leader in the design, manufacture, and service of technology-based drilling solutions for the energy industry, made the decision to find a partner to develop and maintain their service manuals and parts catalogs for the large, complex machinery used on oilfield drilling rigs around the world.

Tesco’s goal was to put more focus on its core business and better align its costs with the needs of the business. The product documentation workload varied widely, driven by the release of new products, and having the fixed cost of a full-time staff did not make sense.

The selected partner needed to have in-depth experience with large-scale industrial products, and the resources and flexibility to be able to quickly ramp up or down, working closely with Tesco’s engineers during the assembly/disassembly process. Steps in the process typically occurred with little notice, taking place in one of Tesco’s U.S. or Canadian facilities.

Approach

Having worked with companies like CNH, Komatsu, and Manitowoc Crane, Contiem brought the industrial experience that Tesco was looking for. Contiem assigned Tesco a project team comprised of technical writers, illustrators, and editors, all under the direction of a Contiem project manager. The team quickly became conversant with the Tesco document library and lexicon.

When Tesco launched a new product, the team members go onsite to the Tesco facility where the assembly/disassembly was to take place. Contiem worked alongside the Tesco engineers to document the process and gather all of the relevant operations and service information, creating a digital record of the entire process. The team then worked with the Tesco engineers using a two-draft process to finalize the service manuals and parts catalogs to get them into the field quickly.

Contiem also supported Tesco’s third-party service business, where Tesco serviced and maintained oil drilling-related products manufactured by other companies. Similar to its manufactured products, Tesco requires comprehensive service manuals for each of the products that they service and support. They relied upon Contiem to develop and maintain these service manuals and parts catalogs.

Results

Contiem worked with Tesco for several years, until Tesco was acquired by Nabors Industries. To support the growing volume of Tesco projects, Contiem opened a Houston office which allowed the Tesco project team to be onsite at Tesco’s largest facility with little advance notice.

Contiem also recently added a courseware developer to the project team and began developing instructor-led training for Tesco, leveraging the product knowledge it has gained over the years.

Contiem provided Tesco with the ongoing benefits of a dedicated documentation team without the fixed cost associated with hiring a full-time staff; the Tesco/Contiem partnership allowed Tesco to focus on delivering solutions to the oil and gas industry, relying upon Contiem to do what it does best: support its clients’ content development and management needs