Guest Article

TI's Tech Docs Travel At The Speed Of Light

Texas Instruments use XML-based solution from LightSpeed Software to speed up and streamline the production of technical documents.

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Texas Instruments - background
Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) provides innovative DSP (Digital Signal Processors) and analog technologies to meet its customers' real world signal processing requirements. The company provides semiconductor solutions to a variety of high-growth markets such as wireless and broad­band access, and for emerging markets, such as digital imaging and audio. In addition to Semiconductors, the company's businesses include Sensors & Controls, and Educational & Productivity Solutions. Texas Instruments is headquartered in Dallas, Texas, and has manufacturing, design or sales operations in more than 25 countries.

TI provides a variety of design support tools to its semiconductor customers, including thousands of complex data sheets which are released with every product the company ships. The data sheets contain product information and specifications, including intricate graphics, tables and text. The source content is generated by engineering teams and then routed to one of several technical publication groups responsible for assembling and producing the data sheets.

Business Issues
Engineering teams at TI were concerned that too much of their valuable time was spent on the development of technical product documentation. Manual processes and a lack of common tools were contributing to lengthy documentation cycle times. Adding to the cycle delays, engineers and the technical writers did not share a common content management and workflow system resulting in a reliance on manual processes for reviews, annotations and approvals.

The previous process began with the TI engineers creating the source content for data sheets. That source content was then forwarded to the technical publications group where it was converted to the company's standard data sheet format and editorial style. Within the technical publications group, the data sheets were edited, reviewed, flowed through a quality control process and then converted to a PDF file format for engineering's review. The engineers output PDF files, reviewed, annotated, approved and returned a hard copy to the technical publications team who completed final production for delivery to their customers. This legacy system was only capable of storing entire documents, contributing to an inflexible and awkward edit, review and reuse process.

The technical publications group at TI decided they needed to replace their existing content management system and processes to free up engineering resources and reduce cycle time delays. Adding to the complexity, TI employed a rigorous data sheet format that they wanted to maintain in the new system, which would require a robust authoring tool. They also recognized the need for a system that not only allowed contributors worldwide to access the data, but also one that was capable of managing and supporting component-level content reuse. To ensure the users adopted the new system, this new content management system needed to accomplish all of this without introducing new, complex tools for use by the engineers.

The Solution
After an extensive search, TI selected Astoria Software (formerly Lightspeed) for its ability to optimize content management processes, and provide a seamless workflow and collaboration for geographically diverse teams. This solution enables streamlined engineering involvement in content reviews and significantly increases efficiencies in the product life cycle process.

TI now has a platform that optimizes the use of its data sheet content by unifying disparate content authoring, collaboration, and management systems into a single workflow. The new system will help increase the collective productivity of the engineering and technical publication groups and eliminate duplication of output and redundancy through its online review and annotation, and a robust content reuse model. The solution is being deployed to the first group at TI and is scheduled for full deployment by the end of 2003.

With the new system, technical publications writers and editors access the content store in the repository, checking pieces in and out, using Corel XMetaL for authoring. Engineers benefit from inter­acting directly with source content stored in the repository. Engineers can review, edit and approve data sheets directly from their browsers. And, since data is managed at the component level, the content is immediately available for reuse.

Solution Benefits
TI will realize greater value from their content assets. The solution not only provides a unified way for collecting, managing and collaborating on content, but it also significantly reduces content review and approval processes, streamlines collaboration between the engineering and technical publication groups, and provides a powerful content reuse model. The solution has also demonstrated to be incredibly agile, giving TI autonomy to change and expand their system to meet future business requirements.

The new system will help TI:

• Streamline and automate its content authoring and collaboration processes.
• Leverage valuable content for reuse using a robust XML repository.
• Leverage the collective efforts of its engineering and technical publication groups through distributed content authoring and review.
• Increase productivity with the use of web-based tools and reducing its data sheet cycle times.
• Reuse content in other areas of its business, such as marketing materials.

4/29/2003
DCLnews Guest Article

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