Stability and flexibility in the flow of information
The two major tasks in providing information
Preserve old structures where it makes sense.
Tear down old structures that no longer fit and rebuild.
To target the challenge, we need to set ourselves two tasks.
The first operating system is focused on the interior.
Here, we need to focus on our data and our internal business processes.
The second operating system is focused on the outside world.
An outside that becomes more and more dynamic and challenges us more and more.
We will need two ways of looking at things in the future. Therefore, we need to set up two "operating systems".
We must be able to respond quickly to these dynamic developments.
Operating system number 1: the stable interior
The first operating system is internal. It focuses on our data and our internal business processes.
In terms of technical documentation, these are the processes of content creation and management, quality assurance, translation, and content publishing.
Essentially, it's about stability and process reliability. Integrity and sustainability must be an essential part of our content strategy. We can't keep adapting content just because external conditions change.
The holistic and sustainable view in this context means that we think about tomorrow when we tackle something today. As a consequence, this also means that we have to think more abstractly when we create our content and provide it with metadata.
Technology and processes
On the technological side, we often have the problem that information is redundantly stored in different systems. We need to make sure we keep the content where it belongs and create a Single Point of Truth
.
Does this already correspond to reality in your company? Take a look at your business. How many "truths" are there? Only one? Probably not. Pretty sure there are several truths and some of them can probably be called alternative facts.
For example, why do we maintain technical data in our PIM system and in our CCMS? This is because we have different areas. These different areas lead to different systems - PIM and CCMS.
It would be good if we had "the truth" in one of these systems, then linked the systems together to access the "truth" wherever we need it. It is important that "the truth" is created only once, where it really belongs. It is important to enable automatic data exchange via interfaces, so-called APIs.
In addition to systems, organizational units such as departments often fight for themselves.
For example, super cool Industry 4.0 use cases are being implemented in the service department. Development knows that technical documentation is essential for this and pulls it from the document management system.
Sounds good for now. But if you take a closer look, here's what you find. The documentation that has been integrated into the service app is a 1000-page PDF that contains 6 languages. This is not really of added value for the customers.
There should have been better communication across departments. One should have taken the view of the information user. Then a sustainable and holistic approach would have been found.
Building bridges between information silos
Let's get back to the silos in which information is maintained. We feel we need these silos to continue to be effective and efficient.
High data quality and low error tolerance help us to offer cost-effective products.
Product costs will continue to play an important role in the future. Therefore, the focus inside must clearly be on stability.
We don't have to tear down our silos. But we have to break it down, we have to build bridges, break down walls and put in doors so that departments and systems can communicate with each other.
Rethinking information creation, automating publishing processes
Our first operating system must be stable. For this to work, a holistic and sustainable view is required. The first operating system cannot be controlled by the second operating system, the outside world. It would be too expensive to change our multilingual content just because someone has a new idea for the presentation.
To keep our content stable, we need to think about it differently than we might be used to.
We can no longer think in terms of tables of contents. We need to modularize topiccontent and our work in a , paying attention to the identifiability of the information.
We need to fully automate as much as possible.
A good candidate for full automation is the translation process. Check if you still need to translate your content manually or if machine translation would not be a good alternative! In our opinion, the result of a fully automated translation process with the integration of terminology specifications leads to very good results. Our own blog is multilingual and the result of a fully automated translation workflow with Machine Translation.
Operating system number 2: the dynamic outside world
We keep hearing terms like User Experience Design or Customer Journey in our second operating system, the outside world. So we orient ourselves to the outside world, an outside that becomes more and more dynamic and challenges us more and more.
As a company, we need to be able to respond to these dynamics quickly and flexibly. It's all about inspiring our customers and users - in other words, the market.
The reality: isolated information in isolated touchpoints
Today we have contact with our clientele in various ways. In person and increasingly digitally via our web portals or social media.
Do you notice anything? Right. Web portals. Plural.
Have you ever tried to find information about your device on one of your suppliers' websites? A piece of information that you need very urgently?
Very often you don't find the information where you are looking for it or it takes a long time to navigate through the different portals to find the information that is important to you. Most of the time you end up with a 1000-page multilingual PDF. This is often very disappointing.
If you look at the websites of various manufacturers, you will find systems such as web page, help and support centers, portals for documentation, various cloud portals that are mushrooming especially in the environment of Industrie 4.0.
What do you find when you find something? PDFs, which are often not even released for full-text search.
All these portals are silos, sometimes very large silos that are not connected.
The topic of User Experience is writ large in each of these individual touchpoints. We very rarely find a user experience or even a customer journey "as a whole".
The target: Information users will find
So we have to gradually break down our silos for our customers and users and bring the content to them. We need to find "a door", an access point to our information and at the same time set up several Touch Points so that our customers can find information from anywhere.
Example: Linking spare parts catalog and documentation
Imagine you are looking for a specific spare part for your device or machine.
No matter how you come into contact with the content, perhaps through a website, documentation, or other portal, you want to be able to find the spare part you need quickly. You want to place an order quickly and of course you want to get the part you need delivered quickly.
While the last and sometimes the second request works well, the search for the spare part is rather difficult. Just like it is difficult to check if it is really the right spare part. Because who knows the part number of the part you are looking for? However, the part number is very often the entry point offered by most portals.
And even if you find the part, you don't know if it's really what you need. You would like to have additional information such as technical data or the product hierarchy to know where this part is installed. You need that information about that particular part to make decisions.
From the system perspective, the spare parts catalog needs access to the technical documentation. Then it would be possible to click on the part in the exploded view and this would display the technical data, - automatically pulled from the documentation without having to store it twice in two systems.
If we think further, not only does the spare parts catalog need access to the information in the documentation, but the documentation also needs consistent access to the information in the spare parts catalog.
Both systems must therefore be connected bidirectionally. And why? You can see that in this further example. Imagine you are in a repair manual. You read how to repair your motorcycle and realize that you need a new spark plug.
Now you want to order the spark plug. But where? In the best case, where you are, in the section with the subject "Replace spark plug".
For users, it must feel like they are in one big information ecosystem. That is User Experience!
To achieve this, we need to break down some silos and intelligently connect others.
c-rex.net DTS and IDS as a link
By the way, the two operating systems are the basis of c-rex.net's business model and philosophy.
c-rex.net DTS serves the requirements of the stable interior.
c-rex.net IDS provides information for the dynamic exterior.
Through the API-driven approach, this architecture provides the necessary flexibility, especially externally, but also for changing requirements internally.
Open interfaces as a basic requirement for new systems
Systems need open interfaces so that other systems can access the information behind these connectors. The interfaces must also provide native access to the original data model. Only in this way is the information completely flexible and not dependent on use cases.
If you have to choose a new tool, why not put "Open interfaces" as a basic requirement on your requirements list and check if it is open and flexible enough for your future needs.
The Celts were already thinking ahead 4,000 years ago and have carved our architecture for the digital age in stone.
In the beginning, all the columns were connected to each other. Today this is no longer the case, because no one cares about the maintenance and further development of this structure.
For us, on the other hand, it is important that our operating systems, interfaces, data and processes are subject to a continuous improvement process.
This also means establishing a person in the company who is responsible for digitalization. And that person should be C-level. A clear corporate strategy must be pursued.
To stay with Stonehendge's image: when the pillars are connected, you follow a clear corporate strategy and stable bridges can be built and maintained.
Our c-rex.net software is such a bridge builder - it is your information hub.