A change to a single parameter value may be only a change to one row of a table in another industry; on our side it touches a good many places. Figures such as the flow rate, the vacuum level, the power, the dimensions and the weight appear at the same time in the parameter table on the product page, in the summaries of the news index, in the body text of dozens of technical articles and in the comparison tables of the documents supplied with the machine, and they then have to be written again in the English version. Once the articles have accumulated in the hundreds, any change to a figure pulls a batch of older articles with it.
This has gone wrong once, and there is no reason for it to go wrong a second time. The parameters published online are used by purchasing and engineering staff to make decisions, and a single stale value that has not been updated in step is enough to lead someone to choose the wrong model or to size the power supply for the wrong capacity. Our approach is therefore to bring the parameters back to a single source and to rely on searching and cross-checking for the rest.
One source, everything else refers to it
The product parameter table is the only source. When an article is written, only the values that exist in the source are used: no conversions, no derived figures and no rewriting into an equivalent form. A figure is moved across together with its unit, its model and its standard number; standard numbers such as GB/T 7600 and NAS 1638 and values with units such as 6000 L/h are written exactly as they stand. This is a hard constraint. It cannot be secured by writing habits; it is secured by rules.
The four steps a single figure change has to pass through
| Where the parameter appears | How it is synchronised when it changes | How to confirm that it has been changed completely |
|---|---|---|
| Parameter table on the product page | Regenerate the page after changing the source file | The parameter table on the page matches the nameplate |
| News index and article body text | Search by value and update article by article | A site search confirms that no stale values remain |
| The Chinese version and the English version | The figures are copied across, both versions come from the same source, and only the labels are translated | The figures in the two versions are identical word for word |
| The documents supplied with the machine and the factory records | Updated in step with the delivery documents | Checked against the factory test records |
The parameter library is at the same time the ledger from which the numbers are drawn when an article is written. Before writing a new article, first confirm that every value to be cited exists in the library and agrees with the source; where a value is not in the library, it is better to write the passage in a different way than to estimate one on the spot. This takes a little longer, but once the article is published it does not have to be changed afterwards.
Why derived figures are not used
A derived figure looks much the same as the real one, but the basis for it is a guess and nobody on site knows which way its error runs. The parameters on an industrial equipment website are there to be used for decisions, and the difference between a derived value and a measured one is enough to lead purchasing to the wrong specification, or to lead the site to wire up with insufficient capacity. Rather than giving a figure that looks more complete, it is better to give only the figures that can be traced back to the source.
The same reasoning applies to the English version. The English version is not written afresh; the labels are translated across and the figures are moved across word for word, so the two versions cannot disagree. When a parameter changes, both versions change with it; that is a fixed step in the process.
Verification is not a spot check
After every parameter change, we search the whole site by value to confirm that no stale values remain, instead of checking a few articles and calling it done. Once there are many articles, a spot check easily misses the old figures hidden in the tables and the figure captions of the body text. The cost of searching is far lower than the cost of rewriting one old article.
Parameters have one source, changes follow one path, and the two languages point at the same figure. Once these three are held, the figures in the articles will bear checking.
