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Featured Research
AIRBUS’S
SUPER JUMBO CONTENT CHALLENGE
Fine-Grained Information Objects, Variants, and Layered Architecture
Form the Solution
By Susan E. Aldrich, May 8, 2008
Distribution Sponsored
by empolis
GmbH
NETTING IT OUT
Airbus, producer of Airbus
airliners since 1970, is a multinational division of EADS
employing 57,000 people in France, Germany, Spain, and the
UK. When Airbus began work on the A380 Superjumbo aircraft,
it also began work on building a new documentation system.
The PDF files and paper used for past airliner documentation
could not adequately address a product that would require
over a million pages of customized documentation and a thousand
people in four countries developing the content.
Axel Sellmer, Manager IS
for Repair and Customer Services Germany, and his team
of 15 staff and about two dozen external experts, developed
the software and systems for technical documentation for
all of Airbus. This new system has a layered technology
architecture and an atomic information architecture. Together,
these architectures support the wide distribution of workers
and the high degree of scalability demanded by the A380
documentation projects. This report describes the exacting
requirements of the A380 documentation projects and the
systems Axel’s team developed to satisfy those requirements.
We’d like to acknowledge and thank Axel Sellmer for
all his help in providing information and insight for this
report.
AIRBUS:
PRECISION PRODUCT,
PRECISION DOCUMENTATION
Introduction to Airbus
The aircraft known as the Airbus
was first created in 1970. As of December 2007, there were
4,794 in operation out of 5017 delivered. An Airbus model
has a long life: the A300 was introduced in 1972, and the
last one was manufactured in 2007. Individual aircraft may
be in commercial service for five decades or more.
Airbus itself is a division
of the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company, which
has 116,805 employees in France, Germany, UK, Spain, USA,
and other countries. Airbus operates from satellites in four
countries: France, UK, Spain, and Germany. It has 57,000
employees. Factories in all four countries produce sections
of the aircraft, which are brought to Toulouse, France for
final assembly. In 2007, Airbus shipped 453 aircraft.
A380:
Debut of Highly
Complex Product
The A380 is Airbus’s
super jumbo aircraft. The world’s largest civil airliner,
with a takeoff weight of 590 metric tons, it can carry 525
passengers and has a range of 15,000 kilometers. The first
aircraft entered production in January 2002; in October of
2003 all parts were transported to Toulouse for assembly;
and in March 2005 Singapore Airlines pilots made their first
A380 test flight. The first customer delivery of an A380
was to Singapore Airlines in October 2007. Today there are
187 on order, and two have been delivered to Singapore Airlines.
In round numbers, the A380
is comprised of millions of parts, provided by 3,000 suppliers;
there are 100 major assemblies in an aircraft.
Each aircraft must, by regulatory
fiat, be accompanied by comprehensive documentation. The
scope and structure of this documentation is stipulated in
an industry standard, which describes roughly 100 manuals
for the repair and maintenance of each aircraft. The documentation
for a single aircraft model is so voluminous that, if printed,
its weight would require two airliners to transport it.
Documentation
Platform for the Repair Domain
© 2008 empolis
Illustration 1. The documentation
platform for the Repair Domain is comprised of four main
layers: the foundational Service Platform, and, above it,
the Authoring Environment, Data Assembly, and Publication.
SUPERJUMBO
DOCUMENTATION
Goals for Documentation
System
ATA Specification iSpec 2200
is the industry standard that dictates the format and structure
of digital documentation for an aircraft. The ATA is the
Air Transport Association, an industry group whose members
are airlines and airline suppliers. The 100 manuals align
with the aircraft structure, with one for each of the major
assemblies. Documentation is divided into two interrelated
domains: repair and maintenance. The documentation must be
tested and certified, and delivered to customers in SGML,
Having 100 printed manuals
on hand, each containing as many as 50,000 pages, requires
substantial space; dedication to constant filing of updates;
and the leisure to flip through pages looking for the right
information. None of these criteria are likely to be met
in a repair hangar. As a result, fleet operators have developed
online systems that deliver repair information on all types
of aircraft to maintenance workers. These online systems
must import documentation from aircraft manufacturers and
other suppliers.
In 1999, coinciding with the
launch of the A380, Airbus launched initiatives to operate
its four independent units as a unified company. It began
developing common policies, methods, and processes to be
used across Airbus. Documentation was one of the first arenas
to be addressed. A common platform and common processes used
by all of Airbus and its suppliers would deliver great efficiency,
meet customer requirements for standardized format and delivery
for all Airbus documentation, integrate and harmonize Airbus
processes, establish a state-of-the-art documentation platform,
and improve the reliability and scalability of documentation
development and delivery.
Airbus also made it a goal
to eliminate paper documentation. Printing, delivering, and
using paper, or paper equivalent (such as PDFs), was just
no longer practical or effective. Even though PDF files do
not create the storage and delivery problems of paper, they
are not easily managed in large numbers. The problem of managing
paper is merely replaced by the problem of controlling file
versions and electronic storage. Updating a page in a manual
requires creating an entire new file. The old file must be
located and removed; the new file must be stored in the appropriate
location. Any errors in this process could result in improper
repair or maintenance of aircraft. A more foolproof, flexible,
and scalable approach was critical.
Given the high degree of regulation,
the actual documents can’t differentiate Airbus’s
product. But the process of creating and distributing the
documentation could differentiate the product in terms of
how quickly updates are delivered and whether the information
is tailored for the fleet or customizable for the individual
airliner.
Superjumbo
Challenges
The vast scale of the A380
documentation, its complexity, its rate of change, its customization,
its integration with customers’ repair information
systems, and regulatory requirements pose daunting challenges.
These challenges drive stringent requirements for the documentation
system.
SCALE. The
documentation for the A380 is well over a million pages and
approaches 50 gigabytes. It addresses every single part and
assembly and covers every repair, damage assessment, test,
and maintenance action that can be taken on the A380. The
100 manuals, some of which are 50,000 pages or more, must
all be complete, tested, and certified before an aircraft
can be shipped to a customer. Scalability drives requirements
in the following key areas:
- Distributed,
Parallel Development. A380
development
is distributed
across four
countries and
thousands of
suppliers;
so too is A380
expertise.
Therefore,
the documentation
system must
support distributed
development,
where a thousand
authors and
other contributors
can work independently
on their modules
irrespective
of the schedules
and accomplishments
of others.
- Central
Planning. At
any time, hundreds
of documentation
projects might
be in process
in order to
achieve business
goals relating
to customer
delivery, new
aircraft models,
or revisions.
Manuals have
dependencies
and interrelationships
that require
coordination.
And, given
that customers
want their
documentation
well in advance
of aircraft
delivery, the
entire Airbus
organization
needs visibility
into the documentation
schedule.
- Independent
Document Assembly. In
order for the
experts to
work effectively
and efficiently
on their modules,
they need to
be insulated
from the problems
of how manuals
are assembled
for customers.
The assembly
of manuals
must be a separately
managed activity.
- Automation. All
aspects of the
documentation
development,
publishing, and
distribution
process must
be as automated
as possible.
This means that
workflows drive
processes, that
forms contain
the correct default
data for each
author and module,
and that assembly
can be performed
with very few
steps.
- Layered
Document and
Information
Architectures. All
of the approaches
that support
scalability—distributed
development,
automation,
independent
assembly—create
an architectural
requirement.
The scalability
requirements
can only be
achieved by
deploying a
layered architecture
for the information
and documentation
which allows
decisions to
be made at
every level
and every stage
of development.
Manuals are
comprised of
independent
chapters and
modules; data
is separated
from explanatory
text; document
layout is managed
separately
from content;
configuration
of the manual
is a separate
step; the decision
on the applicability
of a module
to a specific
variant is
separated from
the configuration
and assembly
processes.
With this layered
approach, the
most informed
people are
making decisions,
and assembly
proceeds automatically.
Without a layered
approach, assembly
would require
a massive effort
to determine
the modules
to include;
and changes
to data would
require error-prone
manual efforts
to seek out
references
to be changed.
In short, the
system would
be impracticable.
CUSTOMIZATION. Each
customer purchases
customized aircraft,
requiring customized
documentation.
The seating layout,
entertainment,
galleys, cargo
bays, and other
elements are
specific to each
airline or air
freight company,
and sometimes
specific to each
route a carrier
flies. So, not
only must the
comprehensive
A380 documentation
be created, it
must be created
for each customer,
or even each
order or each
individual airliner.
- Document
Configuration
System. Configuration
and assembly
of the set
of manuals
for a customer
is a very complex
process that
must be 100
percent accurate
and reproducible.
An automated
document configuration
system, which
allows rules
and facts to
be developed
over the life
of the documentation
project, is
the obvious
solution. The
configuration
would assemble
a set of manuals
from chapters,
chapters from
modules, and
modules from
finer-grained
objects.
- Variants. A
key requirement
of the Airbus
documentation
system is the
capability to
create content
and associate
it with variants
of the basic
documentation.
An example of
a variant would
be an assembly
custom developed
for a customer:
the documentation
for this assembly
would appear
in this customer’s
documentation,
but in no other.
This
report continues...
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