What You Should Know About S1000D

Introduction

For those in the technical publications field, there is a minor revolution coming your way. The minor revolution is called S1000D. You may have heard the name S1000D before, but may not be sure exactly what it means. On a high level, S1000D is a single multinational specification that provides standards and guidelines for the production of technical publications. You might think of it as a "roadmap" that technical information authors can use to guide them through the process of building a technical publication. S1000D also provides a well defined method of exchanging technical information between multiple suppliers and between suppliers and customers.

S1000D was originally created in the European aerospace community, and has been widely used across Europe for several years. More recently, the S1000D standard has gained notoriety in the US as well, and is now being implemented and adopted by a growing number of both military and commercial industry groups across the US.

Although currently targeted at technical publications, practical usage has proven that the specification's basic principles of data re-use also have much wider applications for all types of publications.

S1000D - Then and Now

The full name of the specification is actually “The International Specification for Technical Publications Utilizing a Common Source Data Base – S1000D™”, commonly known as S1000D™.

S1000D™ was initially developed in 1984 by the Association Européenne des Constructeurs de Matériel Aérospatial (AECMA), (The European Association of Aerospace Industries). AECMA represented the aerospace industry of fifteen European Union nations in common technical interest matters.

The group started with the Air Transport Association (ATA) Spec 100, which was widely used in the commercial aviation community, and used it as the basis for development of a new European military specification. This new specification was first released in 1986, and given the name Spec 1000D. Issue 2.0 version, released in May 2003, signaled the first collaborative effort between Europe and the US. It incorporated a major restructuring of the spec, and added options of XML schema in addition to SGML DTDs. Issue 2.0 also addressed support of land and sea systems, the use of the spec became free of charge and was officially renamed to S1000D™.

Recently, the original contributions of the ATA (Air Transport Association) of its SPEC 100 as the basis for the S1000D™ specification have come full circle. In June of 2005, the ATA signed a memorandum of understanding with the Aerospace & Defense Industries Association of Europe (ASD) and Aerospace Industries Association of America, Inc. (AIA) to collaborate on the development of publication standards for aviation maintenance. The stated goal behind this agreement is to incorporate commercial aviation requirements (currently addressed by the ATA’s iSPEC 2200 and envisioned in the Future Data Exchange project) into S1000D™, and establish a worldwide single specification for both military and commercial aviation industries as well as land and sea systems. A total of three revisions to Issue 2.0 of the spec were released over four years, and finally, in July 2007, Issue 3.0 was released supporting Civil Aviation requirements. Issue 4.0 was released in August 2008.

Today, the S1000D™standard is supported by the successor to AECMA, the AeroSpace and Defence Industries of Europe (ASD), the Aerospace Industries Association of America (AIA) and the Air Transport Association. It is controlled by the Steering Committee (SC), which has the full responsibility of maintaining the specification. The SC includes members from both government agencies and industry. To address the rapid development of information technology, a group of specialists, the Electronic Publications Working Group (EPWG), supports the SC in technical matters.

Although currently targeted at technical publications, basic principles of data re-use in S1000D™could also have much wider applications for all types of publications. Even the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) are experimenting with use of the specification on document management initiatives.

S1000D™ is already widely used by the European military community, and is in fact mandated by the UK Ministry of Defence (UK MoD) as the required specification for delivery of technical documents supporting any large scale military program. There are also a few US military programs that have already adopted S1000D™, such as the Air Force F-117A and Global Hawk unmanned vehicle programs, the Naval Air Systems Command Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program, and the Army Future Combat System. Recently more Requests for Proposals (RFPs) from US military programs are also starting to include delivery of S1000D™ publications as a requirement for contractors submitting bids on the proposals.

Please contact CDG for the full download of the S1000D White Paper: