Manage Manufacturer Manuals & Operational Documentation in One Solution

The process of syncing manufacturer manuals with the airline’s documentation is often done manually and therefore not particularly efficient and error prone. What’s more is that the process of manual synchronization doesn’t scale well and leads to repetitive, costly labor that really doesn’t add much value whatsoever. That begs the question: What would be a more productive solution to managing manufacturer manuals together with the airline’s operational documentation?

As alluded to in our article about Yonder’s approach to lean documentation management, we at Yonder came to the conclusion that the requirements for managing airline documentation both efficiently and reliably, are best reflected by taking a modular approach (click here to read the full article).

Central to Yonder’s modular approach is, that content within documentation exists in the form of so called information modules (or just modules), which, by its most simple definition, are discrete units of information that can be enriched with additional information. Individual modules, which can be as short as one sentence or a table row, are therefore capable of carrying information and to enable functionalities that go beyond simply displaying static content. By extension, a document in Yonder is therefore nothing more but a container that holds a collection of such information modules that is by no means bound to the typical limitations inherent to classic documents.

And how does that benefit an airline’s objectives to manage manufacturer manuals together with its operational documentation both reliably and efficiently? The following section will answer that question by means of an example (and for even more details, check out the related on-demand webinar).

Linking Manufacturer Manuals to Operator’s Customized Manuals

Thanks to content being available as information modules, Yonder is capable of managing even complex changes, e.g. to FCOM/FCTM, MEL and QRH from a manufacturer – even with operator customizations to it. Take the following example:

An operator receives an FCOM from Boeing or Airbus. It then rearranges the content to become compliant with the requirements stipulated by its national aviation authority. Additional information modules with operator specific content are added as necessary and the operator even decides to make changes to manufacturer specific information modules.

The figure below depicts three different scenarios (circles 1-3) for change handling. It illustrates the advantages of Yonder’s modular approach and how it can be leveraged to facilitate reconciliation management between customer’s data and manufacturer’s delivery, in combination with the Yonder Workflow. And while it focuses on an FCOM vs. the operators’ customized OM-B, it’s worth mentioning that it will work similarly for other manuals (e.g. MEL, QRH, etc.). Separate workflows can be defined for every document and manuals from different manufacturers can be managed in a single tool.