A major Portuguese shipbuilder has appointed a UK firm to save time and money by implementing the S1000D standard for the technical documentation on their latest warship. Mekon, the independent specialist in technical publications systems, are evaluating and implementing a technical documentation system for the new Viana do Castelo class of oceangoing patrol vessels, which are being built by the Estaleiros Navais De Viana Do Castelo (ENVC) dockyard.
The S1000D standard, developed specially for the Defence sector, helps to connect engineering processes with documentation, leading to significant efficiency gains and cost savings. Working with local engineering partners Certitecna, Mekon is implementing S1000D across the project to enable engineers and designers to create, edit and manage content in format-independent “modules” in a controlled, single source database.
The result is a far less time-consuming and much more efficient documentation management process. It also enables designers to produce documentation, such as descriptive, operational and maintenance documents, in a wide range of formats, from book-based printing to interactive electronic publications. Mekon used their proven analysis process, including the Mekon Content Strategy Audit, to evaluate which products best suited ENVC’s specific needs and concluded that Corenas Life* S1000D was the best fit for the project.
Mekon is providing implementation and integration services across the whole content management system, while its own long-running and popular Eclipse Suite for Adobe FrameMaker provides the applications for authoring documentation. The innovative Eclipse Bookbuild application enables authors to build and print multi-volume publications, and ensures that information contained in the documentation – such as lists, figures, tables – are automatically updated, ensuring that complex technical information is always correct. Mekon are also supporting the conversion of unstructured documents into S1000D-compliant data modules.
Mekon’s Director Julian Murfitt said, “What’s really significant about this project is that there was no existing documentation standard mandated on the Viana do Castelo project when Mekon were appointed. This enabled us to work with our local partners to implement S1000D across the project from the beginning.
“Mekon’s research found that design engineers who help to produce technical documentation are typically wasting between 30 and 50 per cent of their document-related time on unnecessary overheads instead of creating content. On a large project such as these vessels, that could translate into millions of dollars wasted. That’s why it’s vital to implement standards such as S1000D in an organised and strategic manner, with a proper understanding of how to use them efficiently.”
