Automatic Production of Technical Documentation

HYPERDOCSY - 5652

Keywords technical documentation production systems

Start Date: 01-NOV-90 / Duration: 12 months

[ contact / participants ]

Objectives

Technical manuals for complex systems are often written at a late stage of the development process, but are nevertheless based on information which has become outdated during implementation. They are often erroneous and follow no recognised standard. Producing manuals is costly, and can account for up to 30% of the total cost of the overall control system of a new ship or plant. The traditional hard-copy documentation now in use will remain for some time to come. However, several new developments using electronic media (such as hypertext) will increase the functionalities of technical documentation.

The main objective of the HYPERDOCSY action was to specify the functionality and the goals of better systems by analysing:

• a domain model and the modelling process in the field of tools for the automatic generation of manuals based on information available from the system design and implementation process
• the text generation techniques applicable to the generation of technical manuals, based on a domain model of the system to be described.

The consortium benefits from practical experience with traditional documentation and from a number of research projects covering the fields of knowledge representation, natural language generation and analysis, and hypertext systems.

Progress and Results

The outcome of this exploratory action is an understanding of the technical and economic feasibility of future HYPERDOCSY systems.

CONTACT POINT

Mr Asbjorn Andersen
OC CONSULTING ENGINEERS &
PLANNERS A/S
Hovedgaden 2
DK - 3460 BIRKERØD
tel: + 45/ 42-817122
fax: + 45/ 42-817155
telex: 37533 OGC

Participants

OC CONSULTING ENGINEERS &
PLANNERS A/S - DK - C
AVIONS MARCEL DASSAULT-BREGUET
AVIATION - F - P
ALCATEL ALSTHOM RECHERCHE - F - P
UNIVERSITE DE CLERMONT 2
BLAISE PASCAL - F - P
SIEMENS SI - D - P
LOGIMATIC A/S - DK - P
CRI A/S - DK - P

HYPERDOCSY - 5652, December 1993

please address enquiries to the ESPRIT Information Desk

html version of synopsis by Nick Cook