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Cengage Achieve Significant Productivity Savings While Reducing Time to Market

Background

Driven by market demand, two major publishers decided to collaborate on a series of English-language dictionaries for non-native speakers. However, one publisher was in the UK and the other was in the US, separated by distance and time zones.

The UK publisher produced the A-Z standard text while the US publisher was to produce the boxed ‘features,’ used to explain words and their usage to non-native speakers. Thousands of entries were being updated continuously, with features sprinkled on every page of the book. Some 15 dictionaries had to be produced on a very tight schedule.

Producing these boxed features conventionally with, for example Word or Page Makeup, as well as supporting the required review and approval processes, was complex and time consuming. The geographical distance between the two publishers added to the complexity.

Furthermore, making content and style changes to these features meant accessing several hundred files at a time. And integrating these features within the A-Z text of the main dictionary presented additional hurdles and stretched the time and cost to produce the finished books.

Business Solution

Value Chain International (VCIL) implemented DX FLOW, a web-based editing collaboration content creation and review framework. DX Flow provides editors and contributors with a web-based interface enabling them to use the system through any Internet location. Built-in workflow features within DX Flow advise each user what they need to work on next (which dictionary, which entries, etc) and everyone involved receives notifications of changes and comments, and can respond via email.

While editors work within a familiar rich-editing Word-like WYSIWIG (what you see is what you get) environment, the content is actually stored in XML. Any editor can ‘render’ an entry, or page, and generate a PDF to see what it looks like on demand in real time.

DX Flow also stores and controls all comments, emails, documents, etc allowing everyone to see the portions of the project relevant to them. DX Flow’s rich change-history provides built-in complete roll back and roll forward at change entry level, providing both collaborative and parallel input, as well as an audit trail of all changes.

At publication time, DX Flow can automatically generate any particular publication and transform it into a format that can be easily imported by the UK-based company’s production and composition systems.
 

Approach

Working closely with the VCIL team, Cengage was able to rapidly configure and deploy DX Flow in weeks, and provide a live environment where editors could easily make the required enhancements to the next dictionary project.

Furthermore, the use of XML as the underlying DX Flow data store provided Cengage with the complete flexibility to deploy and reuse the data in other areas. It also enabled the instant ‘rendering’ into the dictionary layout, and the ability to perform instant automated transforms into the markup required by the target composition system.
Achievement

The benefits of deploying DX Flow include:

• A cost reduction saving of 90%. The first dictionary was produced for about US$10,000. Through the deployment of DX Flow recent dictionaries were being produced for about US$800.

• Productivity improvements. DX Flow drastically simplified the workflow and effort required, replacing the old time-consuming ‘author-composition-proof-circulate-review-comment-correct-back-to-composition’ circle. This meant authors could instantly see their results. Everyone involved could approve work at their convenience, from any location in the world and instantly publish upon approval.

• Reduction in ‘time to market’. DX Flow offers significant reduction in time to market, which means a new publication can be produced at a fraction of the time that it took for conventional methods.

• Providing full version and audit control to complex collaborative and sizable projects.

• Removed geography and enabled work-teams separated by time & distance to work as if they were all in the same room.

• Rapid configuration and deployment in weeks through intuitive, WISIWIG and email interfaces.

Cengage is now using a similar DX Flow approach for even more complex and challenging projects.

About Cengage Learning
Cengage Learning (formally Thomson Learning) delivers highly customized learning solutions for colleges, universities, professors, students, reference centers, government agencies, corporations and professionals around the world. These solutions are delivered through specialized content, applications and services that foster academic excellence and professional development, as well as provide measurable learning outcomes to its customers.

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