•Introduction of the IETM Authoring
process
Dave, one of the Document Operation Manager from the Arctic
Slope Regional Corporation (ASRC) receives the task to convert the paper
technical manual to digital data for the GE 404 engine used in the F/A-18
A&B aircraft. He divides the scanning tasks into logical sections and
checks if any of the sections have already been converted to IETM Sections
through prior conversions. He then distributes the sections that have not yet
been converted to the Document Specialists under his supervision.
Jim,
one of the Document Specialists receives his assignment from Dave and scans
the section of technical manual he's responsible for, using OCR software (such
as ACS) in order to convert the text. In addition to that, he scans the document
section into a companion tool (such as GCS), to convert the graphics. The
result of these operations is an entity called Digital Document in which he
checks and corrects the errors introduced by the ACS and graphic tool. Next,
the Digital Document is passed to Katherine, a Quality Controller, who checks
it and returns it to Jim for more corrections. When that iteration is completed,
the document migrates to the next step in the process, the addition of links
and structure to the digital document using an AIMSS IETM authoring system by
a Technical Manual Writer.
The product of the document
structuring process is an entity identified as an IETM section. Anne, a
Quality Controller assigned for the verification of this entity searches for
any errors introduced by the AIMSS IETM authoring system. She verifies its
correctness and sends the IETM section to another Quality Controller, Luc, to
perform a final verification operation on the IETM Section document. Luc marks
the document as approved and redirects it to the Workflow subsystem.
•Digital
document verification
As John, a Quality Controller responsible for
the verification of a digital document is examining his assigned portion, he
finds that a caption is missing for an important diagram. He realizes this
correction is critical and attaches a Annotation to the digital document. The
Annotation object associated with the digital document identifies the nature
and description of the error in the document as well as the steps to rectify
the error. Next, John sends the digital document and the associated annotation
back to Tom, the Document Specialist responsible for this document, for
immediate correction.
•IETM section verification
Joe,
a Quality Controller in the IETM section verification process finds that a link
is broken as he examines his assigned document. He determines that it is important
for this error to be corrected in order for the maintenance personnel to be
able to carry out their responsibilities, so he creates an Annotation and enters
the description of the error into it. He then sends the IETM section and the
associated annotation to May, the technical writer responsible for the correction
task described by the annotation.
•IETM verification
A
Quality Controller, Jason, realizes that a page is duplicated in the IETM document.
He attaches an IETMAnnotation requesting the correction to be made. Jerry, a
technical writer receives the notification from the Workflow subsystem that a
correction needs to be made in the document he is responsible for. He
retrieves the document along with the associated annotation from the workflow
subsystem and takes out the indicated duplicate page from the IETM.