Cleaning up your product content lifecycle

The product content lifecycle should result in information that is traceable–each data point in a document should point back to a database or another information source from which the data point was derived.

But unfortunately, we are not there yet.

Instead, we have workflows held together by duct tape and string. Here is a typical one:

1. Product engineers create a design in their CAD system.
2. The information from the CAD file is pushed into tech pubs group and used in a document.
3. The product specs change, and tech pubs dutifully captures the updates in their document.
4. The updated product specs are NOT captured in the CAD file.

So now we have a document that is more accurate than the original design file. This shouldn’t happen, but unfortunately, it is still quite common.

The solution to problems like this is to understand how data moves through the organization. Most organizations have a fairly clean content creation workflow. But when information is updated, all bets are off.

Do you have a big NOPE in your workflow? We can help you fix these issues.