With dozens of authors contributing content for more than 22,000 parts and products in one publication, it’s easy to see why Schneider Electric’s Digest is a one of their most complex product catalog publications. The challenges of creating and maintaining a publication that contains over a thousand of pages of tables, detailed illustrations, simple descriptions and rich technical content is a daunting task. Adding the latest requirement to make that same print and PDF information available in adaptive design/HTML5 felt impossible. Fortunately for Schneider Electric’s documentation team, Kevin Habel had already developed a solution that was perfectly equipped to handle the complexities of the Digest and enable it to feed all delivery formats from a single source. The MOTIF solution focuses on the DITA standard for content structure, uses a collaborative and DITA-aware authoring environment in Arbortext Editor, integrates illustrations from IsoDraw and Creo Illustrate, and manages all the meta-data and content component relationships in Windchill SIM. With expert assistance from Oberon Technologies, Schneider Electric was able to transform its Digest DITA content into an efficient print and PDF output process, and most dramatically were able to quickly deploy the entire Digest in a dynamic online delivery portal for easy accessibility from any digital device. The presenters shared Schneider’s journey and future plans for more innovation.
