RE: Experience of document/'knowledge' management systems

[HALL Bill <bill.hall@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hedley,

Perhaps I don't fully understand this. Are you doing this to get rid of ALL
styles? If so, why don't you just open the Word or RTF document in WordPad,
and then simply save it as Text, leaving the paragraphs intact? You don't
have to do anything with styles.

The solution we are working towards at Tenix is to do all of our
documentation in XML/SGML (i.e., using FrameMaker+SGML) so we have the added
benefit of semantically useful tagging WITHIN the documents rather than just
text.

Of course this requires using a genuine content management environment that
understands SGML/XML rather than SourceSafe, which only manages files.

Currently, we are managing all maintenance procedures for the ANZAC Class of
frigates in SGML - see http://www.tenix.com/PDFLibrary/91.pdf for details of
this project. This implementation includes a source document register and
repository. The repository maintains versioned source documents in their
original binary formats, with version details and other metadata in the
register. Our system then provides two way links between the registry record
and any documents referencing the source, such that (1) we standardise all
of the references, and (2) can easily do "where used" queries whenever one
of the source items changes.

Our next major project will be to move contract and tender documentation
into an XML environment for knowledge management control. In a consortium
called RACE (Requirements and Contract Engineering) Online, along with RMIT
University, CSIRO Manufacturing Science and Technology's Manufacturing
Systems and Automation, SpeedLegal Pty Ltd, and the Australian Industry
Defence Network we have submitted a development grant proposal to fund
development of a DTD for contracts that will allow us to demonstrate these
capabilities. We know we were shortlisted, but won't find out if we will be
funded until the ministries are sorted out after the recent Australian
Federal election.

If anyone is specifically interested in either of these projects, please get
in touch with me directly and I can send some more information.

Bill Hall
Documentation Systems Analyst
Strategy and Development Group
Tenix Defence
Level 10, Yarra Tower
World Trade Centre
Flinders Street
Melbourne Victoria 3005
Australia
Tel: +61 3 8662 7939
     +61 3 8662 7600 (switchboard)
URL: http://www.tenix.com
Mailto:bill.hall@tenix.com

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