THE SITUATION

In service since 1977, the AWACS aircraft is the premier air battle command and control aircraft in the world today. In October 1997, the USAF established a vision to support its users with online, state-of-the-art electronic technical manuals. Previously, technical orders for aircraft maintenance were only available in print. When completed, the online system is projected to make more than 150,000 pages of 275 AWACS technical orders available on the web by the end of 2002.

THE ISSUES

Content must be digitized to SGML to integrate with current SGML technical manual authoring. Render SGML content in web ready format by converting to XML.

Provide secure storage, common viewing and searching interface to access voluminous amounts of text, data, and graphics.

Provide remote access to users around the globe.

The solution must be scalable to accommodate potential use by tens of thousands of users across USAF fleet.

Budget constraints.

THE SOLUTION

The development of the Air Force Common Viewer (AFCV), a generic XML content management and publishing solution leveraging cross platform interoperability, SOAP, and native XML database technology.

THE BENEFITS

When complete, the entire digitization process is expected to save more than $500,000 per year in acquisition and maintenance, as well as provide faster access to updated technical information. To date, the project has already funded-a savings of $800,000.