Born during the golden age of air travel, the classic Boeing 707 was one of the most, if not the most popular commercial fleet during the 60s. Due to its success, air travel quickly transitioned from glamor and luxury to a common means of transportation, pushing the production of more modern, higher capacity models to replace the 707.
Even though this highly successful model has long been retired from commercial use, some of these airplanes are still flying over hostile countries as non-combat military aircraft fulfilling various missions. For example, Boeing E-3 Sentry is an airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft entirely based on the Boeing 707 airframe. From the perspective of Project Lifecycle Management (PLM), this is a perfect example of a product taken from its final phase of servicing one market to the introduction phase of servicing another market, essentially renewing its life cycle. Currently, the best example we have today is the conversion of widebody planes into cargo roles, as the sector is experiencing a swell in demand.
During the concept/design phase of reintroducing a repurposed asset, not just cosmetic changes are introduced, but aviation parts and other types of equipment are usually added to help the asset suit its new use. Due to these modifications, an entirely new set of documentation will have to be created pertaining to data from the original documentation as well as newer data added to accommodate the physical changes
This raises a question: what about the original technical content that is still relevant? How much of it can be effectively reused?
In theory, the data that still serves its purpose can remain and the data that does not should be removed. However, reusing data is never a seamless process when approaching legacy formats such as paper-based or digitally scanned pages. Part of the content will have to be manually eliminated and replaced to reflect the physical overhauls- a process that can get especially difficult with monolithic documents. Furthermore, all technical documentation for the asset (including the new data) will have to be inevitably converted to a similar format towards a unified display, adding another layer of time and budget-related obstacles. All of these intensive, low-level tasks tend to slow down the time-to-market of the repurposed asset, as well as resulting in considerable overheads.
However, with modular documentation standards like the S1000D, it is a completely different story. As content is now stored as independent data modules inside a common database, the “useful” data may simply remain and the data that no longer serves its purpose can be easily removed or replaced with new data. There is no need to create new versions, but one can freely reuse data and add new data as needed. This is especially beneficial when transferring a product from the ending of a Product Cycle to a new one. With all the required technical content ready and fully compliant, the time-to-market of the repurposed product is significantly improved.
This particular application also applies to the production of variants of the same model or different models that share near-identical specs – a common production choice in aviation manufacturing. Having the previous model’s data already stored in the common database, manufacturers may only have to gather a small amount of new data for the incrementally updated repository. This significantly cuts down the time and cost required to prepare the product for launch. In fact, manufacturers may introduce as many variants of the product as they want with minimal worries of procuring documentation.
It is easy to see that, similar to a physical aircraft and its parts, aviation technical data – on a granular level, may remain productive for decades until they are eventually retired. When effective PLM practices are combined with the interoperability benefits of S1000D, fleet owners and manufacturers can introduce and reintroduce products much more quickly into the market, especially if it is an incrementally updated or a repurposed asset.
SYNAXIOM can help
Have questions with S1000D? With decades of experience in multi-spec aviation projects and elite customers including one of the world’s largest aircraft manufacturers, SYNAXIOM can help you address any concerns regarding the display technology of interactive electronic technical publications, affordable management solutions, and their deployment specific to your requirements and mission-critical systems.