Rakennustieto used Aiddocs to automate production of complex technical documents
// Aiddocs cases
More than a hundred titles of Ratu documents – a technical document series of 10+ pages each – have been traditionally assembled as a manual work. Their content has been collected in a structured form to a data warehouse. Aiddocs helped to automate the laborous manual layout work to speed up the process and show new opportunities in publishing.
Benefits
- Consistent document layout and content for all of the 100+ Ratu File documents
- Flexible content updates
- Speedy brand and layout updates throughout all Ratu File documents
- Dynamically generated publishing products with customizable content
- Downloadable content optimized for both mobile devices and computers
Project in detail
In Finland The Confederation of Finnish Construction Industries RT (CFCI) and The Building Information Foundation RTS sr have a long history in publishing technical information files for professionals involved in construction planning. The Ratu File has been developed since 1972, currently in co-operation with the publishers, Mittaviiva oy and building contractors.
The Ratu File contains information about work methods in line with good building practice, work and material requirements as well as information about planning and quality assurance.
Ratu File document data
Ratu File content is stored as structured data in a data warehouse by Mittaviiva. Rakennustieto has a strategy to extend the use of structured data in publishing and to innovate new ways to benefit from data, without compromising visual layout or usability of the publications.
Automating document assembly
Traditionally the desktop publishing of Ratu File document versions has been accomplished as a manual work. This approach does not support frequent publishing cycle for the whole document set. The cost per document is high.
Aiddo oy designed and implemented a solution for automatic layout of Ratu File documents for Rakennustieto and Mittaviiva in 2017. Using Aiddocs, Ratu File document data is generated by the data warehouse and sent to Aiddocs service to automatically generate a PDF document. This whole process takes a few minutes at most, making it possible to produce and publish new versions of all the needed Ratu File document titles in a fast publishing cycle and without manual work.
Results
Aiddocs enables Ratu File documents to be assembled in a fraction of the time what it used to be. Costs are lower due to avoiding manual work. Both of these make it possible to speed up the publishing cycle maintaining consistent layout and content throughout all Ratu File documents. The potential for new publishing products with customizable content open new possibilities in Ratu File publishing.
