Manufacturing
Today's customers expect a variety of different product variations with different designs and numerous options regarding special equipment and accessories.
So, manufacturers need to accommodate the increasing demand for individuality, not only for visions and designs, but also for all related product documentation, while strictly following guidelines, such as the EC Machinery Directives.
During the life cycle of a product, good product documentation is the foundation for the highest quality customer experience and satisfaction. The documentation has to be understandable, factually correct and more often customer-specific for each product.
Typical challenges:
Increasing product complexity
Reconciling numerous product variants based on re-use of existing information
Accommodating constantly growing documentation volume for growing product variants
Increasing documentation life cycle
Increasing language varieties for new market penetration
Necessity for simultaneously shipping product with all technical information in multiple corresponding languages ("simship")
Time and cost pressures for translation, data preparation and quality assurance
System Requirements:
Media-neutral data management based on XML/SGML technology
Flexible re-use of information
Synchronized, geographically distributed teamwork, via internal or external network
Integrated language and translation management capabilities for use with external Language Services Providers (LSPs), including an interface to XML/SGML enabled translation memory system(s) and filter functionalities for "delta translations"
Variety of search functionalities, e.g. full text, metadata and tag search
Role-based user access authorization optimizing the editorial workflow
Version management and where-used-list
Management of non-XML resources (graphics, PDF, etc.) in any data format
Integrated workflow and reporting functionalities
Integration of supplier documentation with own data for the creation of a complete set of customer materials
