The S-standards will cover technical documentation needs

According to Wilén, the S1000D standard as used in all major multinational NATO programs will cover all the needs of technical documentation. Having lived 35 years of his life in the world of information management with 25 of these years focused on aerospace standards, Wilén is pleased to see the growing interest around these standards and expects continued rapid development for years to come.

S1000D is a functional specification for generation, maintenance and transmission of technical documentation in digital format, using a common source database. According to Wilén, S1000D is maintained by a collaborative international organization with military, civil and industrial participation under the umbrella of ASD, the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) and the Air Transportation Association (ATA). S1000D supports all features of page oriented and interactive electronic technical publications. The standard was initiated as early as 1985 by European defense customers and European industry, but did not obtain global recognition until the AIA engaged in 2001. Later in 2006, the civil aviation industry joined and by this time, the specification had became widely accepted.

Under the umbrella of ASD

As the foundation of the S-standards, S1000D is enhanced by other important logistics specifications. One of these is S2000M which covers material provisioning and is also used by NATO. S2000M is managed by the Maintenance and Co-ordination Group (MCG) which is a collaborative international organization under the NATO Maintenance & Supply Agency (NAMSA). This standard is defined by Wilén as a functional specification for material management of defense products, based on integrated data processing and electronic data interchange. Wilén, Grabmeier and their colleagues in ASD are working hard to define S2000M further to the point where it will be applied similar to S1000D.

On top of S1000D and S2000M, another specification is S4000M, the procedure handbook for the development of scheduled maintenance programs for military air systems. There is also S3000L, the international procedure handbook for Logistic Support Analysis (LSA). Finally, it is also worthwhile to mention the newly arrived S5000F which is the application handbook for operational and maintenance data feedback. Wilén is grateful for all the work that Jotne EPM Technology and others have done to make these standards successful through consulting, prototyping and involvement in standards organizations.

The Third generation

Having been long in the world of the S-standards, the continued near and long-term evolvement of the standards is always on Wiléns mind. The third generation Integrated Logistic Support (ILS) standards, of which the S-Standards are central, are close to completion and the management umbrella where all the above mentioned standards are placed under is the ILS Handbook called SX000I. Wilén considers the official publication event held June 2009 as crucial for the new S-standard advancement. As part of the official publication, a six month comment period was started and all remarks will be forwarded to and discussed within the S3000L/S4000M expert groups. The official launch of S3000L and S400M started in June 2009 and the a full lineup will be in place at the beginning of 2010. If readers of this issue of EXPRESSway should have any observations, they should be sent to European chairman of ASD: Peter Eichmüller (peter.eichmueller@eads.com) or to his U.S. counterpart Bill Foreman (bill.foreman@boeing.com )

Standards Supported by a PLCS repository

While each of these individual standards is groundbreaking, it’s even more important that all of them are supported by PLCS. This support extends from S1000D upwards to S9000D, the latter being a data dictionary that will be broadly implemented. A key direction the implementation approach for these standards that has been taken is through a centrally supported PLCS repository that acts as a essential hub of information. It is exactly these types of scenarios that Jotne EPM Technology envisioned many years ago when defining the EXPRESS Data Manager (EDM) as a database that focused on standards based management.

One last important future ASD projects worth mentioning will be the harmonization and integration of data between the ILS Specifications. Proper harmonization of data always involves development of the relevant data model to be able to manage all product related ILS information in one common repository. Jotne EPM Technology looks forward to being an integral part of this future activity through the application of Jotne EXPRESS data modeling technology and expertise in addition to our long proficiency in international standards development.

About ASD-STAN

ASD-STAN establishes, develops and maintains standards requested by the European aerospace industry. It is well recognized as the European body for the development of global aerospace standards by the International Aerospace Quality Group (IAQG).

Read more at: www.asd-stan.org