By Nenad Furtula, Bluestream Galyna Key, Datix In this presentation, we re-think the entire content production cycle, and we use The Toyota Way as our philosophy. Expect fun and engaging conversation that will make you question some or all of time-honoured content production processes and to start looking for waste. We will discuss the Lean principles in Japanese car manufacturing and apply them to content production. We will debate that not only this can be done today, but also that it can be done well. Finally, we will look how using Lean together with a good quality DITA/CMS solution can lead to incredible results in reducing production time and costs, improving team morale, and achieving superior product quality. By product, we, of course, mean content output.

1. Whatever you do, stop it now!
Implementing Lean to eliminate waste
in a documentation production factory
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Nenad Furtula, VP of Sales and Marketing at
Bluestream Database Software Corp.
Galyna Key, Learning Experience Manager at Datix Ltd.

2. Nenad Furtula
 Partner and VP of Sales and Marketing at
Bluestream Database Software Corp.
 Working with XML technologies and bringing XML‐
related products to market for over a decade
 Building and socializing a DITA‐enabled component
content management system (CCMS) called XDocs
 BBA from Capilano University and an BSc
(Computer Science) from Dalhousie University
 Email: nenadf@bluestream.com
 Spare time: Two small children, skiing and surfing
Galyna Key
 Learning Experience Manager at Datix Ltd.
 Hands‐on practitioner working with DITA/XML
technologies to deliver customer leaning experience
on desktop, cloud, and mobile platforms for the last
9 years
 MA Philology from Odessa Mechnikov National
University and MA Technical Authorship from
Sheffield Hallam University
 Twitter handle: @galynakey
 Email: gkey@datix.co.uk
 Spare time: Dancing, yoga, samurai sword (katana)
practice
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3. About Bluestream
 Bluestream has been in business since 1997 and has customers in many verticals,
among them software, oil and gas, health care, military, manufacturing, and finance
 XDocs enables organizations of all sizes to realize the benefits of DITA at a lower cost
than the competition while providing a comparable or better quality system—thus
offering unparalleled value
 XDocs customers range from Fortune 100 organizations seeking complex cross‐
departmental DITA solutions to small businesses containing single author
documentation teams
 XDocs Component Content Management System (CCMS) from Bluestream Database
Software Corp. is a standards compliant single‐sourcing solution that enables
technical communicators to create, manage, and store large volumes of both XML
and non‐XML content
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4. About Datix
 Established in 1986, was founded inside a law firm (defended the NHS
against medical malpractice claims)
 Datix software is used by health systems, hospitals and other health
care providers to report patient safety incidents, monitor patient
feedback and manage risk
 Datix software for patient safety is used by 80% of the NHS in the UK
(more than 350 Trusts)
 Datix has a diverse and rapidly growing customer base in healthcare in
the USA (including US Department of Defence), Canada, Australia and
the Middle East
 Headquarters in London, UK; offices in the USA (Chicago and
Washington DC)
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5. Don’t be Excellent, be Outstanding
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6. Finding Leverage
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7. Life of High or Low Leverage
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 Question #1: Do you and your team have to regularly work
overtime to hit the production delivery deadline?
 Question #2: Do you feel your time is mainly spent on ‘wrong’
tasks, and you do not have time to deliver true customer value?
 Question #3: Do you feel trapped by production delivery cycle,
and let it control your life rather than the other way round?
 Question #4: Do you work harder and longer to maintain your
level of standards, and as a result, have no time left for
innovation with your team?

8. Choosing Life of High Leverage
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9. Lean Strategy
Maximizing company value‐adding activities by
removing waste and letting value flow to customer
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10. How Long is a Piece of String?
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11. Value Stream Mapping (VSM)
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12. Value Stream Mapping (VSM) –
Documentation Production
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13. What is Waste, and Where to Find it
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14. Value Stream Flow
vs Waste Elimination Flow
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waste elimination direction
value stream direction

15. 5‐Step Lean Strategy for Documentation
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1. Create a simplified value stream map for your
documentation production process
2. Locate the point of maximum need, i.e. the point on
the map which is closest to your customer
3. Take a massive action to reduce waste at the point of
maximum need
4. Measure the results to know you are on track
5. Continue working up the value stream identifying and
eliminating waste and celebrating success

16. Today
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17. Two Years Ago
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18. Starting Right at the Delivery
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 Searchable, high‐quality, up‐
to‐date, relevant content
available to Datix customers
online ‐ ASAP

19. Lean (and Mean) Questions
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 Do we help our customers get their answers faster? If
not, what must we do about it – right now?
 Do we help our customers to increase their
productivity? If not, what must we do about it – right
now?
 Do we help our customers onboarding their new
employees? If not, what must we do about it – right
now?

20. Documentation Production at Datix
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 Factory equipment (tools): XDocs CCMS + DITA
open toolkit + Oxygen XML editor
 Content production framework:
DITA/minimalism
 Project management framework: Lean
 Team size: 3 people

21. Today
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22. Tomorrow
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 Delivery! Again, and again, and again!
 Knowledge Paths to accelerate customer
learning (foundational knowledge of Datix
products for onboarding)

23. Q&A
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24. 1. Transportation: Is there unnecessary (non‐value‐
added) movement of parts, materials, or
information between processes?
2. Waiting: Are people, parts, systems, or facilities idly
waiting for a work cycle to be completed?
3. Overproduction: Are we producing sooner, faster,
or in greater quantities than the customer is
demanding?
4. Defects: Does the process result in anything that
the customer would deem unacceptable?
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8 Types of Waste

25. 5. Inventory: Do we have any raw materials, work‐in‐
progress (WIP), or finished goods that are not
having value added to them?
6. Movement: How much do we move materials,
people, equipment, and goods within a processing
step?
7. Extra Processing: How much extra work is
performed beyond the standard required by the
customer?
8. Underutilised employees.
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8 Types of Waste(Cont.)

26. Datix Factory Equipment
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customer
Packaging and
delivery/distribution
Content production

27. Waste Examples
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Stage
Requirements gathering

28. Mastering the Lean Vocabulary
• Value stream and value stream mapping
• Waste (Muda)
• Culture of continuous improvement (Kaizen)
• Workplace (Gemba)
• Sign, Index Card (Kanban)
• Policy deployment process (Hoshin Kanri)
• Continuous flow
• Pull systems
• Quality at the source
• Just‐in‐time
• Automation (Jidoka)
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29. Lean Thinking (Kaizen)
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Right People
Right Processes
Lean Philosophy
The Toyota Triangle

31. Value Stream Mapping (VSM) –
Software Development Example
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