Does this sound familiar? You are part of a communication department where

• the need for localization and the cost of localization is rapidly growing
• localized documents must be ready for simultaneous, world-wide product releases
• translations management poses an increasing challenge in the context of ever-shrinking product development cycles
• product documentation is increasingly complex and diverse
• maintaining detailed document histories is essential

These are the challenges Daphne Walmer faced approximately seven years ago when she accepted the position as manager of Medtronic's Cardiac Rhythm Management (CRM) Technical Communications Department.

Medtronic, Inc., the world's leading medical technology company, is known not only for the superior products it manufactures but also for the superior service and support it provides customers. Because of Medtronic's dedication to customer service, over the past ten years CRM Technical Communications realized increasing needs for localizing product documentation. At the same time, however, the number and complexity of products that required documentation increased while product-development cycles shortened.

As a result of these changes, CRM Technical Communications found that costs for producing documentation were escalating. CRM Technical Communications had to determine how to continue providing high-quality, localized documentation in time for market release of products while keeping costs under control. To add to these pressures, CRM Technical Communications was also trying to respond to demands from external regulatory agencies and from internal auditors to develop procedures that would ensure that changes to documentation were tracked meticulously.

When Walmer took over as department manager, she was charged with responding to these issues in cooperation with André Purnot, the manager of the Technical Literature group, the translation group located in Kerkrade, the Netherlands. Walmer's first move was to initiate an analysis of the practices and processes the department was using for writing while Purnot did the same for translating technical documentation. Their conclusions are summarized here.

Reuse of text

The task force determined that the document development process used in CRM Technical Communications did not take full advantage of opportunities for reuse of text. Although the writing and translation groups made significant progress by all converting to a single platform, FrameMaker, many further problems and opportunities remained. Depending upon the documentation products compared, the group found that thirty percent to eighty percent of reuse exists among documents published by CRM Technical Communications. However, writers tended to view each manual they worked on as a separate entity, rather than as a core document with a number of variations. Even when writers made the effort to capitalize on reuse and to maintain consistency among manuals, changes in writing personnel and tight deadlines and budgets often inhibited these efforts.

To keep track of shared text, writers would have to review manuals one-by-one. This was a time-consuming process, particularly for a writer unfamiliar with a particular product family. Therefore, writers often focused on implementing changes to only one or two manuals at a time, which resulted in differences—from slight to major—among manuals documenting similar products.

Efficiency of the localization process

The lack of consistency in the English source text had a significant impact on the efficiency of the translation process, the task force concluded. Because variations existed among manuals—even in the "shared text"—translators had to be attentive to these variations in order to ensure that each manual was translated accurately. Given this situation, it was no surprise that costs for translation were rising consistently as there was little translation work reused among manuals.

The practice of writing and translating manuals as isolated documents not only prohibits efficiency but it also affects documentation quality. Every time the electronic files of a particular document are opened, manipulated, and/or transferred, the potential for error is introduced. The ability to meticulously track changes to a document is further compromised by the frequent need for human intervention in the document's electronic files. In the heavily regulated medical device industry, error and untracked changes in documents are unacceptable and can affect product reviews and clinical or market release potential.

Automation of the layout and composition of manuals

The task force analysis also revealed that the work of laying out and composing manuals handled by an electronic publishing team also contained inefficiencies. Writers would submit completed files to the electronic publishing staff, who would often have to devote a substantial amount of time to checking and preparing the files for printing.

Depending upon individual writers' facility with tools, a few or many corrections might have to be executed on one file set in order to ready them for print. An electronic publishing staff person may have to repeat the preparation process several times to a set of files if last minute changes were necessary, a situation that is more often than not the case, particularly before clinical trials or market release launches of new products.

The task force concluded that with CRM Technical Communications' current technology , little could be done to decrease costs while increasing the efficiency of the localization process and the accuracy of localized deliverables. Something radical had to be done, so the task force suggested that CRM Technical Communications consider implementing a single-sourcing solution.

Convinced by the conclusions of the task force that turning the tide in the department depended upon adopting a single-sourcing solution, Walmer knew she had to persuade upper management of this as well. So, Walmer began by hiring Greg Johnson to manage one of the writing groups in the department. Johnson was a seasoned technical communicator who also—and very importantly—had been involved in implementing a single-sourcing solution at his previous company. Buoyed by Johnson's support and previous experience, Walmer continued to forge ahead toward a single-sourcing solution.

Approximately 30 in-house presentations and meetings later (by Walmer's own estimates), Don Deyo, Medtronic's Vice President of Product Development and Technology, came round to believing that single-sourcing was indeed the solution for the challenges Medtronic was facing, and he agreed to sponsor the project. Once Deyo's support was gained, a business case was drafted, accepted by management and was eventually transformed into an Expenditure Investment Request (ERI) for US$ 2.7 million1. With the funding in place, Walmer, Johnson, and the others involved were able to move forward.

Johnson selected his team, picking up a strategic translation analyst from the Netherlands' group and adding an author-analyst and experienced programmer, all of whom were essential to support the move toward a single-sourcing solution. Johnson and his team began designing the single-sourcing system. It was now 1997, three years since the single-sourcing solution had first been proposed. Medtronic's Advanced Publishing System (MAPS) was on its way to becoming a reality.

Aided by IBM Global Services, the team started with extensive process and document analyses. Talking over the current process helped department members recognize the inconsistencies in their approaches and led them to adopt more standardization long before the single-sourcing tools were even chosen. The length of time spent on analysis and system requirements paid off. Once it came to choosing tools, even though this was still agonizing, the best approach for Medtronic became clear.

The authoring tool ArborText Epic defines the core of MAPS. The MAPS team has built—and continues to build—customized features around this core to address Medtronic's particular documentation needs (see side box for a profile of MAPS).

Early indicators of benefits

As of November 2001, CRM Technical Communications has implemented the first release of MAPS and is looking forward to the second release, scheduled for summer 2002. The first release of MAPS focused on manuals that ship with pacemakers and implantable defibrillators, because these manuals are relatively short and simple. The second release of MAPS will focus on the longer, more complex reference manuals and will accommodate components such as indexing, screen snaps, and incorporating translated text in graphics.

Of course, the question remains: Is MAPS, the single-sourcing solution, the silver bullet for reducing costs of localization while ensuring timely completion of localized documents? Early indicators suggest it just may be. Preliminary statistics on the impact MAPS is having on document development indicate the following gains:

• Translation time has been reduced significantly, in part because the small number of changes means the remaining translations often do not need to go to outside translators who are native speakers, but instead can be handled by in-house staff who are trained in the language.
• Translation costs for brand new pages have been reduced by over 20% and for all handled pages by more than 50%.
• Document production/layout time for multi-lingual manuals (post-translation) has been reduced from 3 to 5 days to 3 to 5 minutes.

Clearly, the localization process realizes significant benefits from the use of MAPS. Translation time—and therefore translation costs—are reduced because of these changes MAPS has motivated:

• Translation Memory (TM) is now incorporated into Medtronic Technical Literature's in-house processes and no longer is out-sourced, which saves both time and money.
• Only modules that have been revised in a particular manual are sent through TM rather than the entire manual. This saves time and money, of course, by focusing the translators' attention on only the text that requires translation. In addition, the potential for introducing error is reduced as human intervention in the text is reduced.
• While in-house linguistic specialists have primary responsibility for checking translations submitted by the freelancers, the specialists can do translations that are small and select. This reduces the need to hire freelance translators to do these very small jobs.

The cost savings look significant, based on the impact MAPS has had thus far on the localization process, but MAPS promises other important benefits. The consistency and quality of document will improve not only because standard modules of text can be reused among manuals but also because improvements to documentation can be separated from the critical path. Regulatory agencies and auditors should be pleased with the detailed and meticulous tracking of changes to documentation. Use of MAPS promises to add value beyond addressing the most important concerns of budget and timing.

Changing roles and new needs

Implementation of MAPS has introduced a sea change in the way the staff of CRM Technical Communications understand and perform their jobs. Writers have to both broaden and narrow the scope of their work. They have to think across and beyond product families to promote maximum reuse of discrete modules of text, and they have to focus on defining these modules at levels of fine granularity. No longer tied only to specific products, writers have to redefine their areas of expertise to suit the new writing environment.

Electronic publishing staff, relieved of the time-consuming and repetitive work of maintaining templates and preparing files for publication, are discovering new ways to support department processes. For example, one member of the electronic publishing staff, who was responsible for maintaining customized Frame Maker templates, has been trained to write and maintain FOSIs (Formatting Output Specification Instances), the tool in MAPS that "directs" how modules are compiled.

While MAPS has instigated the need for CRM Technical Communication's staff to revise roles and responsibilities, it has also prompted the department to identify new staffing needs. The need for an editor was determined to be essential to the successful long-term implementation of MAPS. Essentially, the editor's role is to record and implement department-wide style standards so that the modules maintained in the MAPS database are clear, consistent, reusable, and translatable.

As the person who took on the role of editor in CRM Technical Communications approximately six months ago, I am currently working with a team of colleagues from the United States and the Netherlands to determine standards and guidelines to which writers must adhere when developing and revising text. These standards and guidelines will be published as a web style guide on the company intranet and will be available to writers and translators. To encourage support for maintaining the standards published in the style guide, I am developing a process by which writers will function as editors for their peers and will be responsible for implementing the standards and guidelines published in the department style guide.

These initiatives have not only encouraged fruitful discussion among the writers of the English source text but have also provided an opportunity for these writers to begin to understand the challenges translators face when working with English source text. I am very optimistic that our documentation processes and products will benefit greatly from the multifaceted efforts CRM Technical Communications and Technical Literature are putting forth to make MAPS a success.

MAPS is still in the early stages of implementation, so CRM Technical Communications cannot possibly anticipate all the resources it will need to realize the full implementation of MAPS. However, the positive early outcomes of the move toward fully adopting a single-sourcing solution are promising. In addition, the close collaboration that exists at Medtronic between the creators and translators of documentation—a somewhat unique situation—creates a positive momentum toward reaching the challenges CRM Technical Communications and the Technical Literature group face. Although much work is in store for all members of the department, we can face this work, encouraged that we are moving in the right direction.

1 Submitting an ERI is a standard part of Medtronic's process for requisitioning funds for new projects.

Beth Anne Chrobot (beth.chrobot@medtronic.com) is Editor in the Cardiac Rhythm Management department of Medtronic, Inc., based in Fridley, Minnesota, where she began her career as a Technical Communicator. She was previously an instructor in scientific and technical communication at the University of Minnesota, where she developed and delivered on-line training to remote sites, including IBM, Rochester Community and Technical College, and Mayo Medical School.