What does it take to keep a helicopter in the air?

Rotors? Certainly! An engine? Definitely! A pilot? Well, the last time I looked. But what about an IETM?

IETM stands for Interactive Electronic Technical Manual, and it is a standard for documentation that was created by the U.S. Military. United Technologies Sikorsky Aircraft provides IETM's with all of its helicopters, and in 1994 was the first contractor to provide the U.S. Army with an IETM for a full weapon system.

Getting to SGML

An IETM goes well beyond paper-based documentation, providing hyperlinks and even database capabilities. In order to meet all of the requirements, Sikorsky decided to convert its data to SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language), specifically the CALS and ATA-100 DTD's (Document Type Definitions).

SGML rigorously enforces structure in documents, making it ideal for bringing manuals to the IETM standard. Joe Zizik, Technical Documentation Manager at Sikorsky, explained that SGML documentation can be more than just an end product for their customers:

"SGML is all we need internally. We can now create and modify documents in Arbortext's SGML editor. The only problem was the data that we already had. The Black Hawk documentation was easy because it used strict CSV [Wang typesetting] codes. The other manuals, however, had no such codes."

Sikorsky had a much more difficult time with the rest of the documentation, because most of it was in a word processing format without style information. They manually coded much of it to SGML in-house, but this required a lot of cleanup due to inevitable human error. Other materials were hard copy only, so these had to be typed and tagged. Again, it involved a large editorial effort followed by a large cleanup effort.

The DCL Solution

"It's too bad we found you after much of the project was done," laughed Mr. Zizik.

The portion completed by DCL was accomplished with dramatically more ease: the materials were 100% ready after conversion: no cleanup was necessary! And the job was completed within budget and on schedule. Mike Gross, Director of Research & Development at DCL, explained how it was done so effectively:

"We automated the process. We've converted millions of pages to SGML, and we already have filters in place for many source formats. We simply matched our software to the needs of this project, which minimized the need for editorial work to a very manageable level. In fact, it worked so well that Sikorsky licensed the software. This isn't always necessary, because we know through experience how best to combine automated processes with manual ones, but their source data was consistent enough that it worked out well for them."

Though the data converted in-house with DCL software was not as perfect as the data converted directly by DCL, cleanup was minimal and Mr. Zizik was very happy with the results.

"If I need conversion work again, I'm definitely using DCL," he said.