MAINTENANCE ASSISTANCE AND CONTROL SYSTEM METHOD AND APPARATUS

摘要

There is provided a method and an apparatus for providing assistance and control in respect of maintenance operations that are based on electronic technical documentation prescribing a set of discrete electronic maintenance instructions ('EMIs'). The EMIs are connected to one another according to a predefined hierarchy and predefined order. The apparatus according to some embodiments of the present invention may include a navigation controller, a documentation management module and an instruction controller generator. The navigation controller is adapted to provide a context pointer or a group of context pointers referencing one or more respective EMIs. The context pointer or pointers indicate a subset of EMIs from among the set of discrete EMIs which constitute a current context within the set of discrete EMIs. The documentation management module is adapted to select a group of permitted EMIs from among the subset of EMIs in accordance with metadata associated with respective EMIs. The metadata may provide an access control specification related to the respective EMIs. The navigation controller may be further adapted to provide an active instruction pointer referencing a current active electronic maintenance instruction ('EMI') selected from among the group of permitted EMIs. The instruction controller generator is responsive to the active instruction pointer for generating at least a respective active interactive instruction-controller ('active IIC'). The active IIC is responsive to a predefined user-interaction and/or to a predefined system state or event corresponding with the active IIC for switching a state of the active IIC to a predefined state that is related to the predefined user-interaction and/or to the predefined system state or event.