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.

Benefits

The benefits are clear. Since only one universal information module is created, the technical communicator will more easily retrieve and manage the information and maximize its re-use. Also, users are satisfied as they do not have to scan through lengthy, standardized documents with tons of irrelevant information. Universal modules break the fundamental trade-off between re-use and personalization. Universal modules enable mass customization for technical communication (illustration 4).

Implications for your technical communication system (TCS)

The basic requirements for a good technical communication system remain valid for those applying a strategy of using universal modules. The tools must provide technical communicators with powerful single-source repository management, version management, workflow, publication management, localization capabilities and so on. In addition, creating universal modules requires the supporting tools to have to specific capabilities:

• As the technical writers have to add conditions in the XML modules, these tools must provide the authors with an easy-to-use mechanism to create valid and consistent conditions. If not, there is a real risk that a random set of inconsistent conditions would emerge within the information modules that ultimately do not make any sense and are not applicable for any valid publication context. A powerful condition management tool can ensure that all conditions are consistent and relevant.
• Also, the supporting tool must be able to interpret and resolve the conditions. It has to know the context in which the information module is used and apply this context automatically to all conditions.

Although the notion of universal modules is still new for technical communication, supporting tools are already available. Contact me if you want to know more about such tools. Also, I would appreciate receiving any feedback on how, today, technical authors experience and deal with the trade-off between re-use and customization.

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