Technical information
done right for the
Aerospace and Defence communities

One of the hardest elements for authors when working in such a strict, standards-driven world, is being compliant. There are rules for both the structure of the data (ie compliance with the schema or DTD) and there may be rules for the content. These might be local house rules, or customer requirements and in S1000D might be driven by BREX (see below for more information on BREX). All the author really wants is the tools to write quickly and easily, in a compliant format, to deliver the content. Our world-class editing solutions come as plug-ins for Abobe FrameMaker and PTC Arbortext. We have tools for both S1000D and for many different DTDs within ATA iSpec 2200 - CMM, AMM, SB, ACMM, AIPC, EM, EIPC, WDM, etc. Browse our Create section for details of all our structured authoring tools.

Integration between Integrated Product Support (IPS) and Logistic Support Analysis Requirement (LSAR) data and your technical information is an obvious connection to save time, avoid re-keying information and reduce human error transcribing data. notusCSDB can import all the common S1000D logistic data types you might find in a project such as Illustratred Parts Data modules (IPD) or Common Repositories (CRs) which are then available to the authors for inserting into content by reference. Even iSpec 2200 can benefit from importing parts information to automatically generate the Illustrated Parts List (IPL). Even if your data source isn't compatible with S1000D, we have tools such as our IPD Generator which can take your tabular data and with a mapping file generate a valid IPD as a turn-key process. 

Being compliant with a specification is one thing and most tools support that. However, S1000D adds a new layer - and in fact maybe many layers to that with BREX - the Business Rules EXchange data module type. BREX allows a project, client or even country to add in their own rules to how the content should be presented. The BREX file itself contains the rules, the allowed values and XPATH statements to support automated checking of content. However, you still need a tool that can process your data modules against the BREX. Our Eclipse BREX checker supports layered BREX and can be run in batch mode to check an entire project at once, if desired. It has also been built in to notusCSDB so you can ensure every DM in a silo is fully compliant.

Although S1000D is primarily designed for online viewing, as some kind of Interactive Electronic Technical Publication or Manual (IETP / IETM), many technical information contracts still demand paper or PDF manuals, rather than data modules. If you already have your content in S1000D, the last thing you want is to have to convert it to some other format just to generate a book. An recent example we've had is the British Army, who still contracted for an Army Equipment Support Publication (AESP). This is where the power of BookBuild can help you. BookBuild can concatenate your data modules in to proper sections and chapters in a publication, so that it looks and reads like a traditional manual. With plug-in stylesheets, we can produce any format you like from the same source data set. BookBuild comes in 3 varieties: notusBookBuild is a desktop solutions, rapidly publishing entire manuals from a local folder of data; Eclipse BookBuild is a plug-in for FrameMaker able to produce complex manuals for specific standards - eg A350; notusBookBuild Professional is our newest addition, bringing the power of BookBuild to notusCSDB allowing you to publish right from the database.