The Journey From Knowledge Evolution To Revolution

Technical Publication Trends

A recent article, published in Aerospace Week Intelligence Network, drew my attention as it focussed on the subject of my professional career … the production of technical publications.

Firstly, I shall reproduce excerpts that address specific content related to my personal experiences, i.e., Technical Author (FISTC), Publications Manager, and Teacher of English as a Foreign Language, before I follow with my own comments.

“Technical publications supporting the operations and maintenance of complex assets in the aerospace and defense industries play an instrumental role in operational enablement and mission achievement. These tech pubs represent the organization's institutional knowledge. As senior staff retire and take a wealth of knowledge with them, these organizations realize technical publications are critical to sustaining newer team members' productivity. Luckily, modern technologies are enabling new ways to utilize tech pubs in productive and innovative ways.”

“Historically, tech pubs have been used passively in the maintenance process. An issue or task arises, a work order is generated with the parts and tools required and the tech is assigned to complete the effort. The technician accesses the tech pub as a reference, either on paper or in the IETM. In other words, the information is passively pulled into the process, not proactively pushed.”

“As we move further into the fourth industrial revolution, assets are becoming more intelligent with innovations like IoT, AI, big data analytics, remote diagnostics and other emerging technologies. Proactive delivery of technical knowledge is possible as the assets themselves can now communicate intelligently with digitalized content. For example, our customers have embedded our technology into asset platforms so the diagnostics data in the tech pub can work with the onboard monitoring systems to identify emerging issues. There is a lot more to this topic than I can cover here, so I suggest checking out my white paper that explains how technical content can assist in predictive and Condition Based Maintenance Plus (CBM+).”

“On top of the labor shortage, 80% of operational, maintenance and support personnel in the global aerospace and defense industry are non-native English speakers, but all aviation industry technical documentation is in English. Did you know it takes up to two years to train non-native English speakers to build competence in Simplified Technical English or STE?”

“As a result, I had several of my defense manufacturing clients look at advances in Machine Translation to deliver dual language technical publications within their Foreign Military Sales or FMS programs. FMS product support is another example because email, live chat and document translation are now vital when exchanging information between FMS customers and their Factory Support Representatives.”

By Bob Hogg, Director A&D Market Strategy - SDL

As a non-academic student of linguistics, I wince at the intent of the language usage prescribed above.  I assume that we have all used our iPhone to translate “Hello” to “Ni hao” or asked “Siri” for “Tomorrow’s weather”, but please, not to replace and adjust microscopic tolerances of a gas-turbine engine, etc. !

Why ?  Because the terms A.I., S.T.E. and Machine Translation imply the eventual removal of human technical language academics.  Professionals who remember hundreds of instances when near-fatal (and fatal) accidents occurred that resulted from poorly-written user guides or maintenance manuals.  For example, the Airbus that had insufficient fuel, or the Challenger that activated reverse-thrust instead of flaps.  Imagine yourself as the captain in a cockpit when emergency lamps are flashing and a robot is screaming “PULL UP. PULL UP” at you.  There are hundreds (thousands) of these examples … and they continue.  Personally, I remember working with Chinese technicians (in China) on G.E. gas-turbines, who worked diligently … as best that they were able … but ….

Are you surprised by my wincing at the thought ?