Do you also want to move forward on the road to Industry and Information 4.0 like the machine manufacturer HOMAG?

In this blog post, we report on the implementation of the DITA-based publishing environment with SAP connectivity.

The picture shows a person with a tablet on which possible solutions for errors on a machine are displayed.

Since 2016, we at c-rex.net have been supporting the machine manufacturer HOMAG on its way to Industry 4.0 and Information 4.0. What exactly was it about? We migrated 25,000 Word to DITA, replaced Word with FrameMaker, and connected FrameMaker to SAP. This was necessary to regain control of the PDF publishing process, which was difficult to manage, and at the same time to create the basis for deep integration of technical documentation into the plant control system. In this blog post, we will introduce you to the project to replace the old publishing environment and show you the potential that iiRDS holds for HOMAG in Part 2. This will provide you with valuable suggestions for optimizing your own system environment and tell you about the ways in which you too can make progress on your way to Information 4.0!

Who is HOMAG and what was the project about?

HOMAG manufactures solutions for woodworking, from individual saws, drills and routers for small workshops to integrated modular systems for entire factories with linked production lines. The company serves customers in more than 100 countries and in 33 languages.

When it comes to the "factory of the future, Industry 4.0", HOMAG is at the forefront, relying on the dynamic exchange of information through the Internet of Things (IoT) to connect computers, machines and people. operators, service-engineers and factory-managers need complete technical documentation to be able to work efficiently and safely with the machines. That is why HOMAG has been providing content directly on the machine for years.

The previous technical solution for bringing documentation to the machine was getting on in years by 2016 and was difficult to manage due to the enormously large number of documents. When an upgrade of the old ERP system was also due, the technical documentation team, led by Andreas Wolf, seized the opportunity for improvement and implemented a new solution together with c-rex.net.

Keep what is good! Give up what hinders! - Requirements for the new solution

Here come the essential requirements that should be - and have been - met by changing the system environment for documentation creation, translation and digital delivery!

This blog post is long, we know, but: Hang in there, you are sure to find parallels to your business and can benefit from this detailed report!

Maintaining the bill of materials-oriented generation of custom-fit documentation

Technical documentation has been published automatically at HOMAG for years by assigning the source content directly to the parts lists stored in the ERP system. 150 employees worked as a team to create documents in Microsoft Word, organize them using a manual file naming system, and convert them into PDF files.

Screenshots of the number-based data organization in the file system — Number-based data organization in the file system

As soon as a woodworking machine was configured in the ERP system on a customers basis, a document system linked to the ERP data automatically compiled the corresponding PDF content. Operating instructions, service manuals, training documents and other technical information were immediately available digitally. A practical thing that should definitely be maintained.

Integration into the new SAP ERP environment

In order to maintain the BOM-oriented approach, the documentation environment had to be easily integrated into the new SAP ERP. Because by then the required structure was already in place. Is your documentation organized in a module-oriented way and would that possibly also be an option for you to use SAP as a central administration point for the technical documentation?

Automation of the translation process and integration of external translation agencies

Translations were almost exclusively done manually. You may know this from your company as well. HOMAG sent Word by e-mail to external translation agencies and received the translated Word back by e-mail. Then they had to be manually numbered, converted to PDF and uploaded to the document system. A time-consuming and tedious process that should be automated.

Additional features that remove limitations of the old Word publishing environment

Introduction of a professional version management
Management of other file formats such as graphics, videos, HMTL5 data
Worldwide usability of the same infrastructure

Components of the new solution

These requirements were met in an intelligent combination of the following software components and standards.

You may get ideas for optimizing your own system environment or discover that your architecture is similarly efficient. Read how we solved this for HOMAG.

pictorial representation of the new publishing environment at HOMAG — New publishing environment for HOMAG

Conversion from Word to FrameMaker and connection to SAP

FrameMaker was the appropriate tool, offering both a comfortable editing environment and the necessary functions for automated document generation. In accordance with the single-source principle, FrameMaker can be used to publish PDF data as well as generate XLIFF data for translation. And - not to be underestimated! - it is also a tool where you can put the DITA/XML functions in the background so that authors (whether they are trained writers, developers or designers) can concentrate on the content.

The migration of the old Word into specialized DITA-Topic, which are then edited by the authors in FrameMaker, was done with our conversion engine dts.c-rex.net.

Decision for DITA

Using the open XML standard Darwin Information Typing Architecture(DITA) allows to automate and standardize the creation of topic-based content, share data with third parties, and easily manage different types of content, including XML, HTML5, videos, and graphics.

Decision for component-oriented documentation - the key to success

The structure of each HOMAG machine - how it is built and which components are used - is fully mapped in SAP ERP. This is implemented in your company in such a way or similar, isn't it?! At HOMAG, the document management system (DMS) integrated into SAP automates the versioning, status management and distribution of documents. It also enables global collaboration through real-time access.

Because the content hierarchy of the DMS differs from that of a typical DITA content management system, HOMAG needed support in connecting to Adobe FrameMaker. That's where we at c-rex.net came in. We developed adaptations for the so-called "component-oriented documentation", converted the Word into DITA-Topicand took care of the connection of the editor to SAP. Why was this necessary?

While DITA uses individual, stand-alone content on a specific topic with an identifiable purpose, called topics, to build documents, SAP DMS relies on the exact opposite. It uses a component hierarchy in which the top component is a whole machine, followed by the parts that make it up. Each machine in the ERP system is linked to an order, to which all documentation is assigned and managed.

We therefore ensured that all the documentation associated with a machine could be stored in SAP in a bundle. We introduced the so-called macro-topics as a new unit. These are documentation packages, which in our case are assigned to a specific component or unit of a machine.

Each macro topic is stored in a HOMAG DITA eXchange Package (HDXP), a special file bundle created in FrameMaker during publication. Each HDXP contains assets such as a DITA-Map, DITA-Topic, and SAP metadata (e.g. e.g. title or component information), images, videos and references to other HDXP files.

The new process: Easy editing, automated publishing, faster translation

The following section describes the new process. Read on and be inspired. Could your future process look like this or something similar?

Easy editing

Writing new information takes place in FrameMaker. A FrameMaker developed by c-rex.net ensures that authors have the correct and complete data at their disposal and that they can edit all the necessary information and then import it back into the SAP ERP system. And all this in a comfortable way.

Presentation of the new DITA-based publication process at HOMAG — New DITA-based publication process at HOMAG

authors check out HDXP packages from SAP.
FrameMaker is started with the HDXP as parameter.
The FrameMaker unpacks the files it contains and opens the DITA-Map.
authors edit DITA files in FrameMaker as usual.
When saving with the specially programmed "Save Package" or "Publish Package" function, everything is repackaged and placed in the folder where SAP can check the files back in.

Translate faster, reduce translation time by 50 percent

For translation into other languages, SAP automatically sends orders to external translation agencies to which HOMAG has granted direct SAP access. The translation agency checks the translated XLIFF files back into SAP. The returned file is checked out to FrameMaker and then published for all output required for various document types and then checked back into SAP. Automating this process has reduced translation times by 50 % for the 33 languages into which HOMAG currently translates. A huge time saver!

Compiling the individual documentation for a machine

When a new order is entered into the ERP system, the SAP CADDI composition software collects all documentation and control files related to the order. It automatically combines the PDF files, creates a table of contents and generates a metadata package. The files are then exported directly to the HOMAG machine (or machines for a large factory order) and published back to the ERP system for archiving.

Milestones in the direction of Information 4.0 or What technical documentation can achieve when properly structured

In the final section of this blog post, find out how HOMAG is making progress on the road to Industry and Information 4.0 with two key features of the documentation solution.

Milestone 1: Control maintenance work using information from the technical documentation

Once in the machine, documentation can take control of maintenance activities as part of HOMAG's Industry 4.0 vision. You're probably wondering now: What exactly is meant by this?

The PDFs belonging to a machine including all translated languages as well as the control file with the meta information required for maintenance are stored in SAP at the assembly. The control file contains, for example, after how many operating hours maintenance work is to be carried out on a particular component. As soon as this number of hours is reached, the associated maintenance information is retrieved (with the help of the SAP plug-in CADDI) for operators in their respective language.

Screenshots of the operator panel of a HOMAG machine — Machine reports maintenance requirement

Milestone 2: Support for operators rectifying machine faults through information available on mobile devices

Another step towards Information 4.0 was achieved with the development of a mobile solution that automatically links machine events with documentation for troubleshooting or prioritizing maintenance and makes them available in an APP.

More should not be revealed here yet. But don't worry, you will soon be able to read how we solved this task, which HOMAG approached us with, with the help of iiRDS. The blog post about it is already in the works.