Organisational management of project and technical knowledge over fleet lifecycles

Abstract

Complex engineered products are all knowledge intensive. It is crucial for suppliers and operators of such “fl eets” of equipment to manage and minimise product costs and risks. Many schedule delays, cost overruns, accidents, excessive operating costs, and premature product failures result from ineffective management of product data, information, and knowledge. This paper reviews solutions based on integrating structured authoring and product lifecycle management systems and data warehousing implemented by a large project engineering and management organisation and the development of an alliance organisational form to support the product to reduce costs, risks and hazards through comprehensive and coherent management of project data, information and knowledge.

Keywords:

• Life cycle knowledge management
• complex products
• documentation
• risk minimisation

Additional information

Notes on contributors

W P Hall

Dr William Hall earned his PhD in Evolutionary Biology from Harvard University in 1973, and was employed as a University of Melbourne Research Fellow in Genetics from 1977-1979. He migrated permanently to Australia in 1980. From 1982 through 1999 he worked with microcomputers in a variety of technical documentation roles in the microcomputer and banking industries.

In January 1990, months after the ANZAC Ship Project contract to build 10 frigates (8 for Australia and 2 for New Zealand) was signed, Bill joined AMECON (ancestor of the present Tenix Group) as a commercial documentation coordinator. Bill's first task for the $7 billion Project (Australia's largest and most successful Defence project, completed on budget and on schedule in 2006) was to build word-processing systems to flow requirements from the head contract into subcontracts. With the major subcontracts in place, Bill participate in support engineering tasks including (a) tracking documentation development activities, (b) analysing and amending the Contract, (c) designing and implementing the initial content authoring environment for the electronic drafting and delivery of maintenance procedures into the RAN's computerised maintenance management environment (AMPS), and (d) designing the initial Operational Availability Recording and Reporting System (now CSARS) used over the first 10 ship-years of in-service operation to demonstrate that the ships met contractual requirements for operational availability. Bill introduced structured authoring based on SGML into the project with technical repair specification documentation. In 1997 Bill represented ILS and Systems Engineering in projects to implement manufacturing resource planning and product data management systems in Tenix Marine. Beginning with a trade study in 1998 Bill selected and helped to implement by mid 2000 a second generation SGML-based content management solution to coherently control thousands of maintenance procedures per ship. Bill then moved into Tenix Defence's Head Office where he helped to establish the architecture for Tenix Land Division's third generation Configuration Management Information System and has worked to develop corporate knowledge management infrastructure and a support engineering community of practice.

Following the reorganisation of Tenix Defence, Bill ceased employment with Tenix in July 2007. Bill is now Senior Fellow in the Australian Centre for Science, Innovation and Society, University of Melbourne, and guest lectures on engineering knowledge management in the Faculty of Engineering's Masters Degree in Engineering Management program.

G Richards

Garry Richards is currently employed as a Systems Analyst with Imag Australia Pty Limited, the Australian distributor for the Matrix10^™ Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) system. Garry has been working as a Systems and Business Analyst in the IT industry for the past eight years. He has extensive experience with knowledge, content and document management, having completed a Graduate Diploma in Electronic Document Management from RMIT and has a background in Technical Communication with the Aerospace and Defence industries. He believes the information technology should deliver solutions to day to day problems in a fashion that makes them easy for people to use.

Garry is responsible for the original design concept behind the system integration described in this article. This solution takes the configuration management and engineering project management capabilities of the Matrix10^™ PLM system and leverages them with the knowledge and content management capabilities of the TeraText^™ Database System utilising the International ASD S1000D^™ Technical Document Specification.

Originally developed in Europe, S1000D is the technical documentation standard used by NATO countries and the US Department of Defense. It has recently been adopted as the preferred standard for technical documentation by the Australian Department of Defence. There is a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for its adoption as the technical documentation standard for International Civil Aviation Industry. It utilises a modular approach to technical documents based on XML, which is managed by TeraText^™. This design fits well with the object oriented architecture of Matrix10^™ and allows engineering changes to be tracked down to individual paragraphs within the technical documentation suite. It also incorporates the ability to capture, validate, track and reuse key product knowledge in a fashion that is straight forward to use.

C Sarelius

Carl Sarelius is the Technical Publications Team Leader for Tenix Aerospace & Defence – Land Division. Since starting with Tenix in November 2004, he has been responsible for the production of documentation for the various specialist products of Land Division, with his main responsibility being the Australian Army’s M113 Upgrade Project. This includes the production of operator and maintenance manuals, and illustrated parts lists for the seven different types of vehicles being upgraded. He is also responsible for the implementation and management of a cutting-edge documentation system for the project, this system based on a configuration management system and all information stored as SGML in a database. Prior to Tenix he worked for seven years in the Defence sector writing documentation for a number of different projects, including the Jindalee Over the Horizon Radar Network. He has a background in management and combat systems from the Australian Regular Army, and a Graduate Diploma in Technical Communication from Swinburne University. His interests include information management, reading, and when time permits, travelling.

B Kilpatrick

Bill Kilpatrick who holds a Masters Degree in Risk Management from Monash University has had a varied career in both the commercial and Defence Industry. In 1966 he joined the Royal Australian Navy as a Radio Operator. Following graduation from the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth in the United Kingdom Bill was promoted to Lieutenant in 1981. On his return to Australia he worked as a Communications Specialist in various appointments including as the Systems Communication Officer and Acting Civil Commissioner at the American base Navcommsta Harold E. Holt in Exmouth WA. Following his retirement from the Navy Bill joined the Australian Submarine Corporation as the Communications Systems Manager in 1987 responsible for the acquisition of the Internal/External Communications system for the Collins Class submarines. Subsequently, he undertook a role as Cost and Schedule Analyst for the Department of Defence before joining Siemens Australia as a Supply Chain Manager on the ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) project in 1994. During this period he had responsibility for the acquisition, testing and distribution of multiplexers to Telstra as a part of the initial roll out of broadband communications. Bill joined Tenix Marine, then Transfield Pty Ltd in 1995 initially as a Cost and Schedule Controller on the ANZAC Ship project and later as Risk Controller for the Marine Division. During this period he concentrated on improving the risk profile of the Division through the introduction of new procedures, processes and training programs. He also worked actively in the area of Knowledge Management and Capture with Dr Bill Hall and as a collaborator on the subject paper ‘Organisational Management of Project and Technical Knowledge Over Fleet Lifecycles’. Bill is currently a Senior Fellow at Melbourne University lecturing and mentoring in Risk Management.