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The Words This Industry Uses
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64 Terms
Grouped by where you meet them. Every entry links onward to the longer piece, because a definition is where a question starts rather than where it ends.
14 terms
S1000D and S-Series
The S1000D data module that declares the product attributes and conditions applicability expressions are allowed to test against.
The machinery that records which content applies to which configuration, so one library can serve a fleet whose members are not identical.
The data module that encodes a project's S1000D business rules in machine-checkable form, so conformance can be validated rather than reviewed by eye.
The decisions a program makes about everything its specification deliberately leaves open, from coding schemes to applicability to permitted content.
S1000D data modules that hold shared definitions once, such as parts, tools, warnings and terms, so thousands of procedures reference one source.
The managed repository at the center of an S1000D program, holding every data module once and assembling publications from them on demand.
The unit of content in S1000D: a self-contained piece of information, valid on its own, stored once in the CSDB and identified by a data module code.
The structured identifier that gives every S1000D data module a unique address encoding what it covers and what kind of information it holds.
The planned inventory of every data module a project intends to produce, functioning as both the scope baseline and the progress tracker.
The S1000D object that defines a deliverable publication as an ordered assembly of references to data modules, rather than as a document.
The international specification for producing technical publications from a common source database, used across aerospace, defense, land and sea programs.
The S-Series specification for materiel management: provisioning, spares data, and the source data behind illustrated parts catalogs.
The S-Series specification for Logistic Support Analysis, the upstream process whose data drives publications, provisioning and training.
The breakdown that assigns every system and component on a product a number, forming the subject portion of every data module code.
16 terms
Defense and MIL-STD
The list of data deliverables a government contract requires, each line naming what is delivered, when, in what format, and to what standard.
What the government may do with technical data it receives, split into unlimited, government purpose, limited and restricted categories.
The standard document that defines the content and format required for a specific data deliverable cited on a CDRL line.
The marking on a DoD technical document, lettered A through F, declaring who may receive it and under what conditions.
A formatting specification used with SGML and military publishing, describing how tagged content should be presented in the output.
The U.S. Army's government-furnished IETM authoring and viewing software, developed at Redstone Arsenal and specified across Army contracts.
A technical manual designed to be used on a screen, with navigation, search, applicability filtering and interactive behavior rather than pages.
The same category of deliverable as an IETM, under the name S1000D and several services prefer. Shaped per program by business rules.
The U.S. regulations controlling defense articles and the technical data about them, whose definition of technical data reads like a tech pubs library.
The U.S. Army's S1000D business rules standard. Revision B is current and aligns to S1000D Issue 4.2 rather than the newest issue.
The U.S. Air Force's S1000D business rules standard for Technical Orders. Revision C is current and aligns to S1000D Issue 4.1.
The DoD standard practice for the general style and format of technical manuals, currently at Revision B, issued in 2020 and free from ASSIST.
The U.S. Army standard governing the content and structure of technical manuals, split into an IETM part and a page-based part, both at Revision D.
The parts and tools listing in a U.S. military technical manual, identifying every replaceable item and the tools needed to work on it.
The complete technical description of an item sufficient to support procurement, production and sustainment, from drawings and models to specifications.
The document that states exactly which technical manual standards a contract invokes and how each one is tailored for that program.
11 terms
Civil Aviation
A mandatory instruction from a regulator addressing an unsafe condition, which removes the operator's discretion about whether to comply.
The airframer's manual for maintenance performed on the aircraft, covering fault isolation, removal, installation and scheduled tasks.
The numbering scheme that divides an aircraft into standard systems, so the same subject sits at the same number across manufacturers.
The civil aviation information standard for maintenance documentation, organized by the ATA chapter numbering the industry has used for decades.
The component vendor's manual for testing, repairing and overhauling a unit away from the aircraft, in a workshop.
The device, usually a tablet, that carries the flight operations library, charts and performance tools into the cockpit.
The manufacturer's operating manual for the flight crew, describing systems, limitations and procedures for normal and non-normal operations.
The catalog identifying every replaceable part on a product and its relationship to the assembly, used to order the right item.
The list defining what may be inoperative and still permit dispatch, derived by each operator from the manufacturer's master list and approved.
The time-critical extract of abnormal and emergency checklists, condensed for use in the seat while the event is happening.
A manufacturer's notice of a modification or inspection, which the operator records as incorporated or not, making it configuration data.
17 terms
Markup and Content
A system that manages content as components rather than documents, tracking each piece, its versions, its relationships and where it is used.
The vector graphics standard technical illustration standardized on decades before SVG, still carrying hotspot data in aerospace libraries.
A system for managing content as pages or documents, typically for a website, rather than as reusable components.
The declared structure content must follow, expressed so a machine can enforce it, as opposed to a template that merely suggests a shape.
A system for storing and finding media assets such as images and video, optimized for retrieval and rights rather than document control.
The connected chain of authoritative data across a product's life, from design through sustainment, with publications as its last mile.
An open XML architecture for topic-based technical content, built around typed topics, maps that assemble them, and specialization.
A system managing whole documents as controlled objects, with versions, approvals, permissions and an audit trail of who received what.
The older grammar mechanism declaring which elements and attributes a document may contain, inherited from SGML and still cited by contracts.
The approach where an annotated 3D model, rather than a drawing, is the authoritative definition of a product and the source downstream data derives from.
A rule-based validation language that checks relationships and project policy a schema cannot express, such as cross-element conditions.
The markup framework that taught aerospace and defense to structure documents, and the ancestor XML simplified and replaced.
Writing content once and generating every deliverable from it, so a change made in one place reaches every output that uses it.
The web-native vector graphics format, XML-based and increasingly the technical illustration format of choice alongside or instead of CGM.
A standalone unit of content about a single subject, written to be understood without the surrounding document and reused in many.
The markup format underneath most modern documentation standards, where structure is explicit and can be validated against a schema.
The modern schema language: written in XML itself, namespace-aware, and able to declare that a value must be a date or a bounded number.
6 terms
Language and Terminology
The controlled language specification for technical documentation: about sixty-five writing rules plus a dictionary where each word has one meaning.
A deliberately restricted subset of a natural language, limiting vocabulary and grammar so meaning is consistent and machine-tractable.
A word or phrase given a stipulated meaning for the purposes of a document, binding wherever it appears and managed rather than retyped.
The structured data about a piece of content: what it is, what it applies to, its status and version, used to manage and assemble it.
The controlled structure of categories and terms used to classify content, so it can be filtered, found and assembled consistently.
The signal words that flag safety content, whose definitions differ between ANSI Z535.6 and DoD manual conventions in a way that catches teams out.
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