S1000D - THE UNKNOWN STANDARD

tekom Austria organised an event dedicated to the S1000D, a standard that originally comes from the aviation and military industries. The event was held at the FH Joanneum Graz. Several guest speakers shed light on the standard, its theoretical foundations and its practical implementation from different angles.
After a brief welcome from Martina König, the course director of the "Technical Documentation" master's course at FH Joanneum Graz, as well as Stefan Gruber-Barowitsch and Markus Arch from tekom Austria, the very extensive programme for the day got underway.
The first speaker, Manjit Roopra, gave a theoretical introduction to the S1000D and explained the structure and functional elements found in this standard to the participants. They also learnt that the standard not only relates to content creation, but also to its preparation and the management of huge amounts of data.
In the next presentation, Claudia and Simon Hagendorfer from the company "text-it Produktdokumentation GmbH" dealt with the question of what to look out for when realising an S1000D project. Later on, it was shown how you can even create good S1000D documentation from Word files. With a little scripting, at least. The many stumbling blocks lurking in such a project were also pointed out.
After lunch, Werner Schadelbauer (HICO Corporate Group) and Harald Stadlbauer (Ninefeb) showed how the S1000D interacts with other standards of the so-called "S-Series". Examples:
•    S2000M: international, standardised specification for material management processes and procedures
•    S3000L: International process specification for Logistic Support Analysis (LSA)
•    S6000T: International specification for training analysis and design
This showed that the S1000D is to a certain extent a world unto itself, but is simultaneously embedded in a much larger context.
The last presentation of the day was given by Patrick Graupp. He is a maintenance technician for helicopters and explained his work and the associated processes and regulations. From his point of view, technical documentation, written in accordance with S1000D structures, is essential for his professional field. After all, without documentation, maintenance work on helicopters and aeroplanes is almost impossible to manage - especially due to the variety and complexity of the components. And in Patrick Graupp, the technical writers in attendance heard someone who enjoys reading documentation and giving feedback. Unfortunately, that's something you often look for in vain in our industry.
After the last presentation and a short panel discussion in which the last open questions were clarified, the FH Joanneum and tekom Austria invited all those present to further joint discussions over snacks and drinks. The day, packed with informative presentations and discussions, came to an end in a relaxed networking atmosphere.
Photo Credits: Phil Hoffer / Martina König / tekom Austria