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S1000D standard to revolutionize content reuse in defense documentation

As a preface to a series of interviews on defense industry documentation specifications, David Skurnik provided DCLnews with an overview of the new S1000D documentation standard used by the military, aerospace, and industry.

Why is S1000 important?

For several years, all the services have dedicated serious resources toward the development of the S1000D. It is a true joint specification and will ultimately result in a single standard for military technical manuals. This will enable intra and inter-service interoperability which directly contributes to the military's goal of Readiness and Safety.

What is the S1000D Specification?

This Specification establishes standards for technical documentation relating to commercial and military equipment. It is an SGML/XML and CGM based standard for the production of paper and electronic based technical manuals.

What are the perceived benefits of the S1000D Specification?

There are several benefits from the perspective of the producers of the documentation (equipment manufacturers) as well as the consumers of the data (military).

Benefits from the Perspective of the Document Producers

• Since the standard is SGML and XML, the standard allows for multi-channel publishing to paper as well as web and IETM based electronic products, thus reducing the overall cost of producing technical documentation.

• The cost for producing documentation will decrease since documentation will be authored in only one format allowing for a streamlined publishing process, irrespective of the product being manufactured.

• It will greatly enhance the global marketability of a product since prospects will already be familiar with the "look and feel" of the product documentation, and the documentation will smoothly integrate with a customer's current publishing environment.

Benefits from the Perspective of the Data Consumers

• Since all the branches of the military as well as the NATO countries will be authoring to the same specification, their data will become interoperable and allow for much greater communication and data mining.

• Standard data allows for the development of standardized systems to utilize the data. This includes and is not limited to a content management system, IETM, FOSI, text editor, supply chain management system and "back office" reporting system. As a result, consumers can greatly minimize the proliferation of disparate systems built to interact with the data, while significantly reducing cost and transforming the military from a "reactive" to a "proactive" maintenance organization.

• As a global SGML and XML standard, consumers will be able to maximize the document's content reuse capability; thus slashing the overall document load, overall cost for maintaining documents, the overall time needed to create new documents, while increasing document accuracy.

History of S1000D
(Adapted from a Presentation given by Dennis Hoyland, Chairman of the Technical Specification Maintenance Group in Poitiers, France 9/23/03)

1. 1984 - The Aircraft European Contractors Manufacturers Association (AECMA) and the British Ministry of Defense (MoD) initiated the development of an international specification for technical publications to harmonize all existing specifications into a specification based on the Air Transport Association of America (ATA) Spec 100.

2. 1989 - The first release of the S1000D specification.

3. 1998 - Initial involvement by the US Military and several key contractors to jointly develop the specification to include US concerns.

4. 2002 - A Memorandum of Understand signed between the AECMA community and the Aircraft Industries Association (AIA) that transferred the overall responsibility of future specification development to be under the auspices of AIA.

5. 2003 - Release of "Issue 2" of the specification which included requirements requested by the US Military and also included an option to use an XML DTD or Schema.

6. 2003 - First legacy data conversion to "Issue 2" during a 2 phased pilot performed by Accenture (www.accenture.com) and Data Conversion Laboratory (www.dclab.com) for the US Department of Defense using the XML schema.

DCLnews editorial
October 27th, 2004
Comments? Click here to email David Skurnik.

Further reading:

Department of Defense and the power of XML http://www.dclab.com/dodxml.asp

Technical documents go online at Continental Airlines http://www.dclab.com/coair_digdocs.asp

Content reuse - the killer app http://www.dclab.com/content_reuse.asp

Oil well services giant Schlumberger harnesses XML power http://www.dclab.com/schlumberger.asp

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