Dynamic Publishing–Arbortext and Windchill Go to Work

By Agneta Weisberg, ITT Flygt

In engineering, the reuse of design data is a priority because it not only saves development time, but also reduces the variety of parts to be created. In technical documentation, information reuse may have even greater payoffs—especially for global enterprises that must publish in multiple languages.

The timely delivery of accurate, user-friendly documentation has become a critical factor in the success of new products. In Europe and elsewhere, companies can no longer bring a product to market without documentation in the local language. Indeed, some technical documents must be ready even before the product launch to inform distribution partners in advance about key selling features. Acquisitions further complicate the task of keeping technical information current, since existing documentation must be revised before products can be sold under the new brand.

More Products, More Documentation

ITT Flygt, a wholly owned subsidiary of ITT, is the world's leading manufacturer of submersible pumps, mixers and accessories. Since inventing the first submersible drainage pump in 1947, the company has grown to a global player in the fluid handling market, with production sites in Sweden, Germany, China and Argentina and representatives in over 130 countries. ITT Flygt employs approximately 4,000 people worldwide and earned revenue of $1 billion in 2005.

The products are used primarily in wastewater transport, mining, general industry, and for all kinds of dewatering applications. With customer needs becoming increasingly specialized, ITT Flygt has responded by developing more and more new products. But because pumps have long lifecycles sometimes 40 years and more, service and maintenance are real challenges. One of those challenges is to provide   technical documentation for old and new products. That is accurate, easy to read and understand.

ITT Flygt decided to undertake an ambitious dynamic publishing project, a topic-based documentation system that maps standard pieces of information to different document types and formats, including websites, CD-ROMs, PDFs and wireless devices.

Making It Happen

The company had made previous attempts to solve the documentation problem without the right technology in place and were therefore skeptical about the projects success. But, it soon was obvious that a topic-based system would provide huge savings of time and money by making it easier to find information, reuse it in all types of documents, perform updates, and print documentation only on demand.

The implementation process involved a number of steps:

1. Identify current technical documentation processes. Using traditional desktop publishing, technical writers had to spend hours updating hundreds of individual documents every time engineers made minor changes to a component used in different products. Authors also spent a lot of time searching for things they had written or translated, and half of the time their searches were unsuccessful.

2. Perform a user analysis and define a reference group. To determine what users really need to do their jobs effectively, a web survey was conducted of 140 respondents and follow-up telephone interviews with 14. This allowed the project team to define two basic user groups—one more sales-oriented and the other more technical-oriented—that authors should keep in mind when writing documents.

3. Analyze the content of existing documentation to assess how much information meets users' needs and can be repurposed. To present information in a way that is easily searchable, a shift from a document-oriented to a task-oriented presentation had to take place. This reorganization involved defining the needs and goals of specific “personas”—detailed profiles of representative users.

Fortunately, ITT Flygt's products share many similarities so that a lot of information applies across product lines. Safety instructions, for example, are 100-percent reusable, not only for ITT Flygt products but also for other products in the Fluid Technology business. We can even reuse the general description of a pump by taking out names, numbers, and measurements and putting them in a separate table.

Examples of Personas

Henry Smith, USA

Henry is 43 years old, lives in the USA and is working as a sales manager at Flygt. He is the father of four children. Henry says that when he has spare time, it belongs to them. Henry's attitude to his professional life is that he expects service from HQ and delivers service to his customers.

He meets and talks daily with his co-workers. Among other things, they talk about the technical directions in the manuals. The greater the risk in a project, the more likely he is to consult with his colleagues at the office.

Henry uses Flygt's material every day and his preferred working tool is his laptop, on which he is surfs and mails on a daily basis. Google is his favorite site. He prefers that news concerning documentation be delivered via e-mail. He doesn't send or receive any sms at work.

Henry's priority list for Flygt's documentation:

•  Use plenty of graphics to illustrate features and procedures

•  The tone of voice must be friendly

•  Use only American English

•  Focus on American standards

•  Customers do not want multilingual manuals and they do not want a multitude of different products in the same manual

•  Make sure that the particular document contains only relevant information that is to the point regarding the specific product or products.

After more than ten years at Flygt, and nearly twice that many years in the business, Henry knows what will please his customers and what will not. Every now and then, his office originates its sales material in-house. Henry's work motto is, “You've got to know the market.”

Gabriel Simone, Europe

Gabriel is 34 years old, lives in Europe and has been working as a technical engineer for two years at Flygt. He enjoys life as a well-educated young urban professional.

At the office he uses a stationary computer and he sometimes searches the Flygt intranet to find information while talking to customers on the phone.

He shares information about new documentation with his colleagues. For specific products, they use a set of binders at the office. When working outside the office, he uses a cellphone.

Gabriel uses the net and Flygt Service Guide everyday. He accesses documentation on the Flygt intranet, but he also uses faxes to send information to customers. His favorite website is BBC.com.

Gabriel's priority list for Flygt documentation:

•  Maintain old documentation to support our customers, thus helping them find the proper replacement equipment more effectively

•  The information must be updated and defined in Flygt's different systems. Performance curves, in particular, have to be updated in sales situations

•  Service intervals

•  Native language

•  Problems with parts list, e.g., same function for different items.

Gabriel's overall impression of Flygt's documentation is good, and he likes technical information, because, as he puts it,   “I am a technical man.” He wants both more information—and he wants it presented more extensively. ”It's like my passion for football—the more the merrier” says Gabriel.

4. Create topics, a content structure, and test documents on the reference group. Based on the content analysis, the project team set up topics and a content structure to allow reuse of information in different contexts. A topic is a standardized piece of information such a general product description or a list of installation steps.

Our approach to structuring content is Information Mapping (IMAP). IMAP provides principles for analyzing, structuring, and presenting information based on science and independent of delivery media. Robert E. Horn developed the method in 1967, the US Air Force initiated the first project, and IBM developed the DITA DTD as a XML tool to support the Information Mapping documentation process. The advantage of this methodology is that authors do not have to care about the layout of the output but can focus completely on the correct content.

Product information has to be rewritten in chapters, sections and blocks so that it can be automatically configured using predefined style sheets. There are specific rules about how many blocks make up a section and how many sections make up a chapter. If the information doesn't conform to this structure, it won't work in the style sheets.

The rewriting process is expected to take about six months to a year for every product line from every factory. Usually the team start with one product and look at the template to decide what   can be reused for others. The more information the authors put in the database, the more reusable components they have for the next product. Once all the information on a product is complete and proved with test documents, the team switch to the new documentation.

5. Choose the system vendor. ITT Flygt chose Arbortext® for both its functionality and the strategic opportunity it offers. Indeed, ITT Headquarters strongly supported the choice since it is interested in deploying the same dynamic publishing system and needed a solution that is globally supported. PTC's acquisition of Arbortext not only strengthens the company's position but also offers additional benefits through integration with Windchill® which is already an ITT standard.

6. Test a key application. Automatic updating of the parts list is one of the first dynamic publishing applications to go live, providing immediate savings of some 2,000 manhours a year. The parts list is now automatically configured and updated by retrieving the part numbers and descriptions from the mainframe, the exploded view of the assembly from the CAD system, and a short explanation typed into a web application and stored for reuse.

Just the Beginning

But this is only the tip of the “benefits iceberg” from using the Arbortext software. The ITT Flygt project has expanded into a Fluid Technology Group project with all four value centers (Flygt, RC&W, IBG and AWT) working collaboratively.

Arbortext will ultimately integrate content management into the PDMLink component of the Global Vault. The translation memory database will also integrate with the Windchill PDMLink and ProjectLink component of the Global Vault. There may be some complementary tools we need to implement to close the existing gaps in the near-term until PTC solutions are available out-of-the-box. The team is now at the point where they are for solutions to manage this integration. (More detailed information on ITT's product development system can be found in Ron Watson's article, “ITT's Global Vault—Realizing the Value of PDS,” in the Fall 2006 issue.)

Ultimately, the real value case will be implementing a system that enables users to easily find and re-use information. The translation memory capabilities will constantly “learn” from previous versions and allow a very selective update when the basic text is changed. Both of these capabilities alone will lead to an enormous savings in the amount of time and money, as it means that information will be created once, translated once, and then translated again only when changes are introduced.

Once the dynamic publishing system is fully implemented, more and more of ITT's documents will be generated and updated automatically and as a result accurate at all times, more accessible, user-friendly, and presented with a consistent ITT look and feel.

Agneta Weisberg is manager of technical documentation at ITT Flygt.