Today, the Adepters Code Archive expanded to include IsoDraw code for the first time. Thanks to Trevor Hendricks from Kohler, last month’s speaker for the Arbortext PTC/User Group.  Trevor Hendricks is the master of all things IsoDraw at Kohler — and everywhere else. Everyone in the IsoDraw community looks to Trevor for advice, suggestions, and guidance. Trevor has always been found at the forums at PTC.com and now he’s joining the Adepters Code Archive.

His presentation last month was well attended and appreciated by the attendees. He has enormous amounts of advice for handy macros to have on hand and tips for smooth operations that improves adoption by authors and deployment (and subsequent support) by staff.

Today, he sent some macro code for us to post (while he’s getting all set up). Here’s what he sent:

• Resize to Frame: Resizes a selection to fit the frame
• Update Preferences: Cleans up a .iso file to fit your preferences (handy when getting files from outside vendors)

Thanks, Trevor and we’re looking forward to benefiting from your experience on Adepters!

We’ve posted the recording of the interactive web session held on February 24, 2010. In that session, Liz Fraley from Single-Sourcing Solutions and Dan Dial from Sequoia Etc showed how using Arbortext Content Manager helps resolve business needs. It all starts with managing content. Synchronizing your product information with your product development enables you to:

• Minimize risks by reducing errors and implementing fail safe controls
• Maintain control of valuable IP
• Create a fully audit-able records trail that meets the tightest of compliance requirements
• Reduce customer service costs
• Quickly adapt to market changes or enter new markets quickly
• Take advantage of global development centers through a single-source
• Drive revenue

Learn how to establish the best in class business practice of managing, controlling, and distributing the information used every day by your company and clients. Understand the difference between content management and document management. By the end of the video, you will have the information you need to take the next step to:

• minimize the risks that could impact your company’s profitability, and
• recognize potential new revenue opportunities for your company.

Please fill out the following form to see the video:

PTC wants to know what topics customers are interested in discussing at the upcoming Arbortext Technical Committee meetings in June. The TC has published a survey here:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/L23XY8M

Please answer the survey.

Answer it even if you’re not coming to PTC/User or are not part of the Technical Committee. PTC is very interested to know what topics are of interest to existing customers. Survey responses will have influence over the Arbortext product roadmap.

If you want to join the TC, go to www.ptcuser.org, become a member, then click on TC tab to join the Arbortext Technical Committee.

We’ll publish the results here after the survey is complete.

The latest PubWright Podcast has been posted to here and on iTunes here.

This week’s podcast features Kevin Dietz from Timpani Software. Timpani Software develops BuildBeat, a comprehensive automated software build management system, and MergeMagician, an automated merging server designed to work with your existing software configuration management (SCM) system.

Recently, I was privileged to talk with a customer that implemented Arbortext in 1999: Greg Johnson at Medtronic. Greg heads up what his executives have told him is “the most successful project Medtronic had ever done.” We’ve already talked about how dynamic information delivery systems can really drive down translation costs. This time we’re talking about what reuse brings to the table.

It’s important to remember that this is the value that Medtronic has come to after 10 years of investment in the dynamic information delivery system. They continued to develop it over time and to focus on the things that drive those numbers down.

What drives it down?

According to Greg, it’s reuse. Their reuse is at 90%. Their writers are reusing written, translated, validated translations that they can prove are untouched and reused as is.  In their system, they can certify, based on the validity of the system, that they are using exactly the same content. They haven’t touched it; there are no changes: they haven’t created a revision that triggers other processes and other costs.

They’ve seen the translation savings numbers trend downward for for years. However, even if you’re investing more for the authoring side, you still see the win in each language. You still see it even if you’re only producing documentation in English. You still get the win because you’re still reusing modules rather than rewriting, validating, and producing large amounts of content.

At Medtronic, just on the authoring side, the data is equally impressive:

* Before: the first manual for a new model would see 95k new words.
* After: new models have 55K new words; all the rest of the content comes from reusable modules.

Writers and management collaborate to plan documentation for new models taking care to look ahead to other models, so they keep getting win after win for follow-on products.

Today, Medtronic has over 100 models, with variations on features and things that are all over in terms of price points.  Greg’s team can crank out the manuals for new models right and left. All the features have been netted out to all 100 models and beyond.

Over the last 7 years, they’ve been tracking what it would have cost if they hadn’t had a dynamic information delivery system. They’re keeping a running total. It’s a long process to see the return on the up front costs, but the return is utterly dependent on the scope of the problem.

Greg doesn’t sugar coat it. He admits that it’s a painful process, a long fight, but there are awesome returns. “Reuse is king,” he says, “and you should push for it; don’t start on authoring side thinking you will band-aid in localization later, understand up front, partner with localization partners to do this right.”

See previous article: Dynamic information delivery systems reduce translation costs

Recently, I was privileged to talk with a customer that implemented Arbortext in 1999: Greg Johnson at Medtronic. Greg heads up what his executives have told him is “the most successful project Medtronic had ever done.”

Greg was responsible for bringing a dynamic information delivery system into Medtronic.  When you talk to him, he’ll say that “you don’t want to do how/what we did. It’s 10 yrs later. But I want to encourage you. There are vast savings and vast reductions in cycle time and vast improvements to do in this field, if you do it smart, build your vision, and go be passionate about it.”

He says that believing the stories is hard, but he’s the first to tell you not to be faint of heart. “There are a lot of people finding their own way and finding their own wins.” He wants more companies to join the conversation. “Spend a day, tour, spend time with management teams. See the exotic things [that other people have done]. They will encourage you along the way. Keep slogging ahead, and you can get there.”

Greg knows that talking with others can really informed the decisions you make.  He shared with me some of the amazing results they’ve seen the last 10 years.

Here are the trends they’re seeing:

• increasing product complexity
• increasing # languages
• increasing volume of documentation
• increasing product overlap
• shorter product life cycle

They’ve seen these trends the last 10 years and he doesn’t see these trends changing. In the face of these trends, his group has shown dramatic changes and savings in a very visible project.

All the divisions at Medtronic use the same internal translation center based in the Netherlands. About 7 years ago, the director there hit on a way to collect and track cost data across all the projects that come through. In the last 7 hears, he has done it the same way every time. The data is broken down by business unit, then by content translated within a business unit. He’s got inside and outside real world data on what it costs, per page, to generate these results.

Medtronic is now publishing this as a trend line internally. The data is so staggeringly better within the dynamic information delivery system when they compare it to other BUs that are using traditional publishing tools.

Here are the stats.

The average cost per page to translate a 200 word page (including QA and everything):

- Other BUs: $47
- Their BU, groups not using the system: $38
- Their BU, using the system: $5

Over the last 7 years all the trends are downward but the 10:1 cost reduction is monumental. $47 can trend down, but $5 will trend down, and it’s a lot harder for $47 to catch $5.

This is the kind of cost savings and time-to-market driver that cuts across industries and geographies.  They’re global drivers.

Next: The benefits that reuse brings.

This is the fourth post in a 4-post series reporting on an interview I did with Greg Johnson from Medtronic. Over the years, Medtronic has increased their investment in their dynamic information delivery system. They have continued to develop it and they have seen their ROI returned again and again.

The Cost Savings Factor

Even after proving to management that he would increase quality, address the audit issue, and reduce cycle time, management said, ‘yeah, but how much money can you save me in this project.’

So he told them about the benefits of reuse, automating composition, and source control.

Greg and one of the MBAs at Medtronic did formal business case model together to show how much money would be saved. The results they predicted were unbelievable. They were too stellar.  So they put in two lines:

1. the numbers they believed in were labeled “optimistic” and
2. numbers they made up and labeled “conservative”

The 2nd line were numbers they thought that management would believe. For example, although they believed the could get 90% reuse, they scaled it down to 50%.

And, for the record, they did reach 90% reuse. They reached every single one of the “optimistic” goals. In 2005, they had exceeded optimistic line and met or exceeded all other commitments. Greg’s team received the Star of Excellence for their business unit as well as the Medtronic Star of Excellence. A executive told Greg that they got a higher ROI than if they had put the money into another product and that his project was the “most successful project ever seen at Medtronic”.

All thanks to a dynamic information delivery system that solved the audit problem, the cycle time problem, and saved money.

And it all started when Arbortext took them to see what Caterpillar had done (starting 10 years earlier still). Greg said when they came away, he didn’t know whether they were more exhilarated or exausted at the proposition and how far they had to go.

Now they’re the inspiration for others.

Greg says, “You don’t want to do how/what we did. It’s 10 yrs later. But I want to encourage you. There are vast savings and vast reductions in cycle time and vast improvements to do in this field, if you do it smart, build your vision, and go be passionate about it.”

Previous: The Time to Market Driver and The Quality Driver

First in the series: Benefits of dynamic information delivery for life sciences

This is the third post in a 4-post series reporting on an interview I did with Greg Johnson from Medtronic. Over the years, Medtronic has increased their investment in their dynamic information delivery system. They have continued to develop it and they have seen their ROI returned again and again.

The Time to Market Driver

Cycle time is critical unless you want to miss market ship dates.

Greg told me a story about a time when there was $300 M in new product on shipping doc waiting on the FDA approval of the documentation. They took a chance and preprinted the documentation — at risk — and they were standing by, ready to stuff the boxes and move the product across the line, so they could take the inventory in the quarter. Everything was waiting on the call from FDA.

He tells me that docs are always the last thing approved and that The FDA can require any change — the moving of a comma, for example — before giving the approval required to ship. Documentation can make or break a quarter.

When you add translation to the mix, it’s not uncommon for a translation center to tell you that they need the content before the specs are written in order to make the target market release dates they’ve been given.  These are frantic publishing schedules with $100s of millions of dollars at stake.

At Medtronic, because they’ve validated the content and can trace every change ever made, they’ve achieved 90% content reuse. They can assemble existing content — in english and other languages — reducing the risk factor to new content and changed content. They’ve drastically reduced cycle time in order to pull document release time in closer to product release time in their home market and in the international ones.

Next: The Cost Savings Factor

Previous: The Quality Driver

This is the second post in a 4-post series reporting on an interview I did with Greg Johnson from Medtronic. Over the years, Medtronic has increased their investment in their dynamic information delivery system. They have continued to develop it and they have seen their ROI returned again and again.

The Quality Driver

When the FDA audits, they audit manufacturing processes. They want to see the records that you followed those processes. They can go deeper and deeper. They don’t do it often, but they have the right to. Every medtech company lives in fear that the FDA will show up at the door one day and want to see everything. Everything needs to be clean. If you don’t pass, there are triggers that can shut down a business unit or an entire company. The FDA can padlock the front door if they want to.

Medtronic decided that they wanted a system that provided a level of control for information creation and delivery. They wanted the system itself validated: They wanted to validated the tool so they wouldn’t have to validate the content coming out of the tool. They decided that the best way to get that validation on the input side, so they certified the input. They wanted their documentation to be able to pass FDA audit for every change they ever made.

They implemented a system that would meet those requirements. They made sure the system itself was covered, that development was covered, and that staff was properly trained. Today, their system is Part 11 compliant for system security. The documentation team goes through all the same hoops when testing and preparing for audits that the rest of the company goes through.  It’s fair to say that their documentation is being held to a software standard.

Medtronic can prove that information coming out of their dynamic information development system:

• has a documented, approved, assigned, scope
• has defined requirements
• cannot exceed the scope
• has traceability and validation to the defined requirements
• documents produced by the system are held to standard of class 3 device

Although their main driver was quality, they’ve proven that they got that and more. In fact, because they left traditional publishing tools like Word and FrameMaker, they got all of the big three benefits in one package: increased quality, reduced cycle time, and reduced cost. As far as I know, there’s no one like them in all of Medtech.

Next: The Time to Market Driver

Previous: Benefits of dynamic information delivery for life sciences

I was fortunate enough to reconnect to an old friend. I reached out to Greg Johnson from Medtronic and had an amazing conversation about their dynamic information delivery system.

Medtronic implemented Arbortext in 1999. They have been the subject of a case study and a customer success story. I’ve seen them present at the Arbortext user conferences (AUGI) over the years. In fact, I never missed one of Greg’s AUGI presentations. I learned a lot from them in the early days and I still have his slides on my computer.

It wasn’t so much that I wanted to do what they did — I had to do what was best for my situation — but I could see what was possible, where I could go, and at least one way to get there. I always left inspired by the possibility and exhausted by the prospect of the work ahead.

Greg still presents at conferences world wide. And he will be the first to tell you not to do what they did. Technology has changed, your goals are your goals, your capabilities are your own as well. But definitely join the conversation. The payoffs really are this great. The implications of moving to this kind of system are way bigger than you can imagine.

It was great to catch up with Greg. Over the years, Medtronic has increased their investment, continued to develop, and seen the ROI returned again and again. It was great to see that the payoff is definitely there — and that it continues to be there if you keep at it.  It was also humbling because this is not a short path, it is a long, long journey to get there. It’s good to know that if you keep at it, your ROI build upon itself every step of the way.

After 10 years, their project has started to reach out to:

• software objects and applications
• specifications that need to be published
• technical services
• training and education

They’re still driving toward cradle to grave information development. As a medical device company, they chose to take their project down a difficult road: they wanted to have their dynamic information development system validated as if it were, itself, a Class 3 Medical Device. They wanted to validate the content coming out of the tool so that their information development would pass FDA audits.

He said that XML publishing addresses three main points essential for Life Sciences companies and anyone interested in producing efficient technical publications:

• The Quality Driver
• The Time to Market Driver
• The Cost Savings Factor

I’ll be addressing each one of these in the posts to come so everyone can learn from what they’ve achieved at Medtronic.

Greg says, “You don’t want to do how/what we did. It’s 10 yrs later. But I want to encourage you. There are vast savings and vast reductions in cycle time and vast improvements to do in this field, if you do it smart, build your vision, and go be passionate about it.”

Next: The Quality Driver