The story of VIKING began in 1981 in Kufstein, Tyrol, Austria with the production of garden shredders. Since then, the product portfolio has been expanded continuously and was completely renewed in 1992, after the company joined the STIHL Group, world market leader for power saws. Today, VIKING produces and sells lawnmowers, ride-on mowers, garden shredders, lawn trimmers, hedge shears, hedge cutters and motor hoes.

VIKING's consistent focus on quality products and excellent marketing in association with the STIHL Group make it one of the leading companies in the gardening-implement sector. VIKING's success is based primarily on its premium strategy. This extends throughout the various corporate divisions and is impressively illustrated by VIKING's technical documentation, which reflects the premium quality of the company's products. On today's markets, there are fewer and fewer distinguishing features in terms of product technology, which makes after-sales service the key factor in winning customers. This includes high-quality documentation that covers every aspect.

The greatest challenge when producing user manuals, spare-parts catalogs and service manuals is the time factor. With the ever-decreasing time to market, product documentation must be ready before dispatch. Because of high time pressure, photos were often used in documentation in the past, but this is no longer compatible with VIKING's premium strategy.

Technical illustrations are the only way to present information clearly and comprehensibly. Normally however, drawings take a long time to produce. To overcome this problem without loss of quality, VIKING decided to acquire IsoDraw CADprocess in 2002.

VIKING wanted to use its 3D design data created with ProEngineer in its documentation in order to save on duplication, thus eliminating the need to redraw products and parts. It initially tried to do this before acquiring IsoDraw CADprocess, but its attempts were unsuccessful, particularly in terms of quality. Although it is possible to create different line thicknesses in ProE, the classic thick/thin technique required in technical illustration could only be realized after complex reworking.

Another disadvantage of using ProE data directly was the amount of design time it took up. Every part required by the illustrators had to be prepared by the design engineers in the CAD system, which involved yet more time - time that could have been spent on product development.

"IsoDraw CADprocess was the perfect solution for us", explained Helmut Pirchmoser, Head of Technical Documentation at VIKING. "The only thing our design engineers still have to do for our illustrators is export design data to IGES. The rest of the data processing is now performed entirely by our illustrators using CADprocess. Access to the CAD system is not required for this."

When the illustrator has prepared the data as required, e.g. rotated a component to the correct position or exploded an assembly, the file can be converted to a technical illustration at the press of a button. And not only that - hidden lines are automatically deleted and line weights (thick/thin) created correctly. The time savings compared with former processes are enormous and improvements to the product can now be depicted much faster.

VIKING products have high design requirements. The modern styling of the units inevitably results in many parts with complex free-form surfaces. "Drawing these manually would either be very hard or completely impossible. This type of work can only be done by IsoDraw CADprocess. Complex parts occasionally require some reworking, but for normal turned, milled or welded parts, the illustrations produced with CADprocess can be used practically unchanged," explains Helmut Pirchmoser.

In conclusion, the introduction of IsoDraw CADprocess enabled VIKING to optimize its documentation processes and thereby fulfil its high quality requirements efficiently. The company was thus able to extend its premium strategy to its technical illustration.

VIKING's user manuals have been praised by various European test periodicals (e.g. Stiftung Warentest, Heimwerker Test), in some cases being singled out as exceptional.

All graphics © VIKING GmbH, Austria