Presentation from DITA Europe 2014 on the topic of Lean Manufacturing and DITA. How DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) has been used on Lean Manufacturing projects and how Lean Principles change how we deploy DITA and Content Solutions.

1. Lean DITA: Lean Manufacturingand DITA
Joe Gollner
@joegollner

2. Commentary –DITA Europe 2014 (Munich Germany)
This presentation was delivered atthe DITA Europe Conferencein Munich Germanyin November 2014The experience of deploying DITA into projects aimed at facilitating Lean Manufacturing processesled to the observation that content managementand publishing solutions rarely exhibit, but desperatelyneed, the benefits of Lean Manufacturing. This presentation explores what lean contentprocesses might look like….

3. Philosophy >> Beer >> Lean Manufacturing >> DITA

4. Agenda: DITA & Lean ManufacturingBackground on Lean ManufacturingDITA on LeanManufacturing ProjectsChallenges withinEnterprise EnvironmentsA Lean ContentProcessing FrameworkLean DITA

5. Franciscan Friar & Oxford Scholar
“Pluralitasnon estponendasine necessitate” “Plurality is not to be posited without necessity” “Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity”
Ockham’s Razor entails removing all extraneous details
Eliminating waste
Really a Pull modelwhere details are added only if necessary William of Ockham & Ockham’s Razor

6. From Scholasticism to the Perfection of Beer BrewingMedieval German beer brewing demonstrated the merits of lean manufacturing centuries before it became fashionable

7. The brewing of beerwas perfected in Germanyin the 13thCentury
An innovation thattook root & spread quicklyAdding an Essential Ingredient: Hops

8. The Lesson of Beer Brewing –Focus on Customer Value
Customers pay only for what is of use to them and gives them value. Nothing else constitutes quality. (Peter Drucker)

9. Toyota Production System
Manufacturing Process Best Practices
The Machine that Changed the World
Womack, Jones & Roos (1990)
Popularized Lean Manufacturing
Training within Industry (TWI)
WWII US Government Initiative to
improve industrial productivity
Built on Approaches created in WWI
Deployed to Japan as part of post-war
reconstruction effort
Introducing Lean Manufacturing

10. Muda–Wasted time & effort
Seven Forms of Waste
Excess Inventory
Extra Processing
Over Production
Unnecessary Transportation
Idle Waiting
Superfluous Motion
Expensive Errors
Mura
Waste caused by variability
Muri
Waste caused by over-burdeningThe Tao of Lean Manufacturing –Eliminating Waste

11. Eliminate Waste
Pull resources through the value-stream
Amplify Learning
Test, refine, re-test, improve
Decide as Late as Possible
Build options in upstream
Deliver as Fast as Possible
Get feedback quickly
Empower the Team
Let the team decide
Build Integrity In
Strive for internal elegance
See the Whole System
Focus on the customer value-streamThe Seven Principles of Lean Manufacturing

12. Adopt a Whole System Perspective
Prioritize system optimization over component optimization
Engage Integrated Product Teams
Enable multi-disciplinary collaboration
Embrace a Pull Model as a Design Principle
Processes pull only what is needed to satisfy downstream needs
Establish Standardized Work Procedures
Document every step & relentlessly test, refine, improveCore Building Blocks of a Lean Process

13. DITA deployed on Lean Projects
Aerospace / Defense
Two Industry Awards for Lean Manufacturing Innovation
Healthcare / Pharmaceuticals
Engineering / Manufacturing
Two Key Objectives addressed with DITA
Information Pull
Enabling a pull framework where users receive just-in-time information
Standard Work Instructions
Specialized DITA definitions ofprocessablework instructionsDeploying DITA into Lean Manufacturing Projects

14. Operating a Content Value-Stream
Flowing just-enough content to support downstream demands
Information Pull
Users
Performing
Tasks
Establish
Content
Store
Dynamic
Delivery
Services
Integrated
Reference
Content
Content
in Source
Systems
Master
Content
Sources
Information
Generated
On-Demand
User-defined
Information
Needs
Enables System Life Cycle Optimization
Support
Process
Design
Process
Manufacturing
Process
Standards
&
Guidelines

15. DITA used as a Master Format
Accommodated content assets assembled from many sources
Permitted theelaboration of richmetadata structures
DITA Contentpulled into multiple systems across the supply chainDITA and the Information Pull Solution

16. Commentary –Establishing Authority Networks
The “Information Pull” model is actually more than just a design attribute of anefficiently operatingLean Content Solution. An information pull model establishesan authority networkthat connects primary sources to myriad accountable uses. An authority network allows data fromactual events to be streamed backto the decisions behind them. This establishes the genuine accountabilitythat is essential to all critical functions.

17. Highly structured descriptions of work tasks
Designed to help teams to optimally perform work tasks
Provided in a range of formats for use in different environments
Ideally designed for both people & supporting software to read Standard Work Instructions

18. DITA Selected
Over numerous options
DITA Machinery Task
Judged the most complete model(a bit of a surprise)
Specialization was stillgoing to be necessary
The only real option
Complex Content Acquisition Problem
SMEs in different units
Complex Delivery
Many different formatsDITA and Standard Work Instructions

19. DITA in the Turbulent Sea of Enterprise Systems

20. Adapting to the Mainstream: Not New but still RoughVolume & complexity of the content was significantDiffering XML support across Enterprise SystemsMany tools placed serious constraints on XML that they usedMost popular authoring tools had serious limitationsChallengesPerformance demands were dauntingSupportability & adaptability were flagged as criticalSupplier Networkmultiplied thesechallengesChallenges fell into two groups that pulled in opposite directionsZero DITA Awareness

21. When deployed as part of an enterprise solution, content processes face specific demands:
Many processes will be called for
Many of these will be highly complex
Change requests will arrive continually
Expected immediately
High expectations around quality & speedDITA in the Big Leagues

22. Commentary –The Ironic Flight Away from Lean
The demand for greater precision, control & performance typically leads, when left in the hands of Information Technology (IT) groups, directly to the blind embrace of closed & proprietary tools that achieve none of these goals for long and certainly not when extended across a distributed and changing supply chain.
The governance of content solutions, as with the governance of all content assets, must remain with the business stakeholders. This is one reason content is largely invisible to IT Groups or, when seen, despised.

23. So What Kind of Content Processes Do We Need?

24. Lean Content Processes
Business RequirementsBudget RealitiesPolitical FactorsUser NeedsDemonstration CapabilityModel ImplementationProduction DeploymentContinuous Improvement ContentTechnologiesContent StandardsBest PracticesOpen SourceCommercialContentStrategyLeanMethodologyDiscoverDesignDevelopDemonstrateDeployLean Content ProcessesProcessStepProcessStepContentSpecificationsValidation & AnalysisContent AssetsProcessInformation

25. Inputs to Lean Processes –Business on Top
Business RequirementsBudget RealitiesPolitical FactorsUser Needs

26. The Working Mechanisms of Lean Content Processes
Lean Content ProcessesProcessStepProcessStepContentSpecificationsValidation & AnalysisContent AssetsProcessInformation

27. Commentary –The Recursive Core of Lean Processes
At the center of Lean Content Processeswill be a small, recursive structurerepresented by a process step, associated with specified & validatinginputs and outputs. Also associated witheach process step will be reports providinginsights into the operation of the process stepand providing analytical views of the inputsand outputs.
This model can scale infinitely…

28. Sequence of Outcomes: Escalating Capability
Demonstration CapabilityModel ImplementationProduction DeploymentContinuous Improvement

29. Commentary –The Role of Model Implementations 1
A Model Implementation is what could becalled a didactic implementation in that it seeks to be:
Comprehensive in supporting a broad range of functionality
Illustrative in demonstrating how different functionality can be implemented
It is less important that it exhibit the scalability & performance of a production system.
A model implementation acts as a point ofreference for a production deployment.

30. Commentary –The Role of Model Implementations 2
A Model Implementation acts as a criticallyimportant troubleshooting tool for a production deployment. The productiondeployment outcomes, in total and at key process junctures, can be compared to corresponding outcomes in the Model Implementation.
A Model Implementation does not come withthe same burden of completeness & precision that is tied to Reference Implementations.

31. Mechanisms: The Resources being drawn upon
Content
Technologies
Content Standards Best Practices
Open Source Commercial
Lean Content Processes draw upon Content
Standards, Industry Best Practices, and
best-of-breed Content Technologies
(starting with open source & introducing
commercial tools as necessary)

32. Pull Model –Streamlining Inputs
Articulated in Modular Architecture
Self-sufficient, distributable components
Articulated in Documentation
Fully described instructions & rules
Validated Outputs
Process steps are individually testable
Detailed logging & reporting
Model Implementation
Open, low-cost, functionally complete
Production Implementation
Scalable, secure, integrated with enterprise systemsAnatomy of a Lean Content Process (7 Parts)

33. Enabling the Full Content Life Cycle
Content
Acquisition
Content
Management
Content
Engagement
Content
Delivery
Content
Strategy
Information
Product
User
Task
Guidance
Feedback
Efficient and Sustainable Content Processes
are a Pre-requisite to a Smoothly Functioning
Content Life Cycle that delivers value to customers

34. Lean DITA
Nothing Revolutionary
Simply the application of
rigorous configuration management
& lean principles to the use of DITA
to achieve business objectives
Select
Behaviour
DITA
Open
Toolkit
DITA
Standard
Lean
DITA
Solution
Select
Models
Content
Strategy
Commercial
Technology
Customer
Value
DITA Open Toolkit
In this scenario, the
DITA OT acts as a
Model Implementation

35. Commentary –Production-grade DITA Deployments
The rigorous application of Lean Manufacturing Principles to DITA-based Content Processeshas a number of immediate consequences.
It necessitates that organizations deliberatelyestablish production deployments of DITAand DITA processing services that include onlythose models and processing components thatare absolutely necessary. Not for everyone, clearly…. The DITA Standard and the DITA Open Toolkit(which cannot be legitimately considered separately) are treated as Model Implementationsto be used for reference during Production Deployment.

36. Testing is critically important in all systems
Perhaps especially for Content Solutions
Unit Tests
ConformanceTests
Business Tests
Compellingbusinessscenariosshowcasing integratedfunctionalityA Digression Concerning Testing
The GnostyxDITA Demonstration Set

37. Commentary –Demonstration DITA Set
The GnostyxDITA Demonstration SetEfforts continue to establish a functionallyrealistic demonstration data set for DITA. The design objectives for the demonstration setinclude illustrating the range of content that a DITA solution can be expected to manage & publish including marketing materials, learning content, engineering background information, troubleshootingprocedures, as well as end user documentation. The demonstration data set is also intended to beeasily reconfigurable so that it can be quicklyrebranded to resemble the content of different firms.

38. Getting Back to What’s Important
The customer decides
what success looks like
The optimization of Content
Processes must be completely
governed by the provision of
customer value

39. ArsContenta
Joe GollnerManaging DirectorGnostyxResearch Inc. jag@gnostyx.comTwitter: @joegollner
Blog: The Content Philosopher
www.gollner.ca
Aqua Mechanica

40. Closing Thoughts
GnostyxResearch Inc. equips organizations with the tools and knowledge they need to make the most of their content assets.
As an independent solution provider that specializes in leveraging open standards and extensible technologies, Gnostyxprovides
strategic guidance
implementation assistance
learning resources
extensible technology components
The team at Gnostyxsupports customers around the world and works in a wide range of industry sectors. Over two decades, Gnostyxhas developed a particular specialty in supporting organizations managing complex systems within in highly regulated environments.