24.11.09, Automated publishing of operating manuals - Germania uses TCToolbox for its aviation documentation
The German airline Germania Fluggesellschaft mbH uses TCToolbox to optimise its documentation workflow. The XML-based content management system from Ovidius has been deployed to process aviation-specific documentation processes, from planning the creation of content through to distribution, in a way that complies with the relevant legal requirements. For automatic updating of loose-leaf collections of operating manuals, Ovidius provides an interface to TopLeaf, a publishing system offered by the Australian company Turn-Key Systems.
The independent airline Germania, based in Berlin-Tegel, has been servicing various national and international destinations for 30 years. It concentrates on the business segments of Lease, Charter and Seat-only Sales. Germania issues the operating manuals for the Boeing 737-300 and 737-700 passenger airplanes in the form of loose-leaf collections. Aviation companies are obliged to document any changes to their aircrafts that result from maintenance work or subcontractor changes. If any part of an aircraft is repaired or exchanged, this must be recorded in the respective flight manual. To make revisions easier, Germania uses Ovidius‘ TCToolbox content management system, which manages product „information modules“ and allows for intelligent version management.
The „Diffing“ view in TCToolbox can reconstruct the complete version history of a flight manual. Current versions can be compared with previous ones, and any differences between two versions are automatically highlighted. These change marks are evaluated by the integrated typesetting system, TopLeaf. If the content of a page has changed compared to its previous version, you can either automatically publish and deliver the collection of all changed individual pages or the updated full version. If a version has been released for publishing, TCToolbox prevents any further revisions. This feature provides revision safety and longevity of the documentation thus created.
"With TCToolbox we have established a central platform that allows us to process all of our documentation processes more efficiently. Direct integration of TopLeaf allows us to update operating manuals easily and to provide revisions quickly", says Lutz Kohlert, project manager at Germania, about the content management system from Ovidius.
