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Applying "mass customisation" manufacturing principles to solve technical communication problems
1 February, 2005 By Yves Rombauts,Trisoft. Contact us if you would like a PDF version of this article.
Overview
This article discusses how organisations can resolve the conflict between the need to produce bespoke, customer-specific, technical communication and the need to re-use as much information as possible.
It begins with a description of the conflict and resulting trade-off and then compares it to the field of manufacturing, which has found ways to deal with a similar issue. Universal information modules are introduced as the solution - these allow the manufacturing principle of mass customization to be applied to technical communication. The article ends by outlining the requirements needed for supporting tools in order to adopt this solution.
In this article
The fundamental trade-off between re-usable and customized communication
Breaking the trade-off: adopting the trend in manufacturing
Creating universal modules: concept and benefits
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