When businesses implement intelligent content, they usually adopt a “day forward” strategy that assures all new content is “intelligent” (i.e., is developed in XML and dynamically published), and they minimize the volume of legacy content to convert and migrate. Semiconductor equipment manufacturers – like many other capital equipment manufacturers – support products that last 30 years or more, so legacy technical content is critical to keeping that equipment up, running, and profitable for their customers.

In one such company today, that legacy content exists as monolithic manuals in PDF format that are hundreds of pages long, or as PDF renditions of engineering drawings, or as data in enterprise systems in relational databases or ERP systems. Field Service Engineers spend many hours per week searching for content across multiple systems – ERP data, content repositories, engineering websites, drawing repositories, knowledge bases, technical forums, email, personal notes – to find the procedures, drawings, reference information, and expert advice they need to effectively troubleshoot and repair customer equipment.

In the future, that information needs to be seamlessly integrated into a single-point of access that provides the Field Service Engineer with information that is relevant to their current context: the product they are working on, the customer account, the current configuration, the current problem or fault condition, the latest engineering information and best known methods – all without entering a word into a search box.

The challenge for intelligent content is simply stated: How do we get there from here?

In this presentation at the Intelligent Content conference, we’ll discuss this company’s unique pathway forward to intelligent content:

• The complexity and richness of content types and sources that must be unified through search and navigation for the end user (service engineers);
• Building a firm foundation with a sound information architecture including taxonomy and metadata;
• Taking the first steps with a modular content strategy based upon PDF documents in SharePoint, with a unified custom search experience;
• Transitioning in later phases of the project to intelligent XML content integrated with enterprise data in a seamless, task-focused interface.