ESPRESSO The Messenger HARPS observation of the Venus transit Spectroscopy of the Magellanic Stream Science with ALMA Band 11 No. 153 – September 2013 –September 153 No. Telescopes and Instrumentation The ESO Product Data Management System — A New Home for ESO’s Technical Documents Maximilian Kraus1 and all the paper documents were Large Hadron Collider (LHC), and it is Roberto Tamai 1 scanned by a specialised contractor and accessible worldwide to CERN partners. Paul Jolley 1 thereafter only stored electronically. The CERN documentation experts Guy Hess 1 shared their experience in the design of Staff at the La Silla Paranal Observatory the EDMS configuration and also gener­ had, in principle, access to this archive ously offered ESO access to their system. 1 ESO through the intranet. However, on account The ESO administrators were trained of a shortage of network bandwidth and and worked for several weeks with CERN speed, the search and download perfor­ colleagues and in that way gained valu­ Originally the technical archives at ESO mance was not considered good enough. able information. grew organically and lacked a single At the observatories technicians did not coherent storage and access system. A always have the documents available One major lesson learned from this search for a powerful product data when they were needed, and problems exchange was that commercial systems management (PDM) system to unify remained in maintaining the documenta­ designed for industry fit poorly into an the document archives of observatory, tion set in the event of changes or open and creative research environment. telescope and instrument technical upgrades. This is also why CERN had heavily material was initiated. After a careful modified a commercial system and pro­ assessment of the possible systems, it Over the years, and especially with grammed a completely new user inter­ was decided to implement the Kronodoc the advent of the European Extremely face. CERN operates two completely system and its recent introduction Large Telescope (E­ELT) project, the different archives: one for the creation of as the ESO PDM system is described. need for a centralised archive for techni­ drawings and another for the project cal documentation became more and teams, as they had learned that there are more evident. In addition, modern fea­ different working cultures and processes Technical archives at ESO tures like remote access, configuration in the two areas, and integrating them control of documents and release work­ would be difficult and cause many prob­ Over the years several tools have been flows were necessary to support such lems. introduced and used for the archiving a large and complex project efficiently. and sharing of the ESO documents that It was therefore decided to search for As a result of these exchanges, ESO staff, contractors and consortium part­ a replacement for the archiving systems. investigated the suitability of the CERN ners produce and store for technical EDMS system as a tool to operate the products and projects related to tele­ ESO Technical Archive. While these scopes and instrumentation. This hybrid Search for a new archiving system investigations were proceeding, we learnt approach has worked well for most of about another commercial documenta­ the project teams, but the overall avail­ Initially the search for an archiving sys- tion management system from a small ability and control of the documents was tem concentrated on a drawing manage­ Finnish company, called Kronodoc. This not optimal. There has also been a cen­ ment system, because it was perceived company was created by engineers who tral archive, called the Technical Archive, that drawing sets, with their parts lists used to work at CERN and helped to which developed from the documentation and structures, are very complex to implement the CERN EDMS system system set up for the Very Large Tele­ handle, and “normal” documents (for within the framework of a Finnish in­kind scope (VLT) project and was located at example, specifications) should be more contribution to CERN. Further information ESO Headquarters in Garching. The VLT straightforward to store and access. on this spin­off company has been archive was originally planned for printed Several commercial systems were exam­ published2. The Kronodoc system was documents and drawings on paper, ined, but, after a detailed investigation, investigated, and we immediately under­ and was controlled using document lists. in each case a number of missing fea­ stood the similarities between it and the On Paranal a separate archive with a tures or functions were identified and the CERN EDMS. copy of the documents from Garching candidate systems were considered was set up. unsuitable for the ESO research environ­ During the investigation of the CERN ment. system as a possible solution for ESO, In 2003 this paper-based Technical we learnt about its many interesting Archive (see Figure 1) was migrated to Contact with colleagues at the European features, but also recognised that EDMS an electronic archive. New documents Organization for Nuclear Research is fully configured for use at CERN. It were only accepted as electronic files, (CERN) was established and visits were could only be adapted to ESO’s needs in and were accessible to ESO internal arranged to learn first-hand from their a very limited way, and there would still users on the intranet. The printed docu­ experience. Many years ago CERN intro­ need to be some compensation for ments produced earlier and stored were duced their Equipment Data Manage­ CERN’s substantial efforts. The Kronodoc scanned on demand and also made ment Service (EDMS1) system. After years system took care of this limitation: it available on the intranet. In 2009, because of development and adaptation, EDMS offered many of the interesting features of of the urgent need for office space, the has become a powerful tool and is in use the CERN system, but with the flexibility Technical Archive rooms were needed for many projects at CERN, such as the to configure it for ESO’s needs. So it was 2 The Messenger 153 – September 2013 tion at any time. Changes to processes are managed and any change initiated by a designer is scrutinised, and once accepted, the purchase department or workshop will be using the updated doc­ uments. Only then can the finished prod­ uct be traced and the up­to­date docu­ mentation be avail able when the product is used. At ESO the product creation process is usually not as complex as in the manu­ facturing industries; however there is the same need for complete and updated documentation when our products enter into their productive life. So we tried to achieve a similar goal: a database which can identify all our products from when they start their life as Phase A projects, through the start of operations at the observatory, tracking any modifications until they are retired from use. The system must provide all users with all documents relevant to our products at any moment Figure 1. Two views of the paper­based ESO Techni­ of their life. cal Archive: storage of folders in sliding cabinets (left); registered documents in suspension files (right). The majority of ESO’s products are designed and produced by industry or decided to enter into a definition and test­ For the handling of the technical and consortia, and after testing, delivered to ing phase, and a contract was concluded project documentation, the Kronodoc ESO. So there is no need for the ESO with the Dutch company BlueCielo, who system was found to be compliant. It had PDM system to cover the complex design had recently acquired the Finnish com­ all the needed functionality: its flexible and manufacturing environments. How­ pany Kronodoc3. nature allowed it to be adapted to the ever, it is essential that we absorb all needs of ESO, it was accessible from information created in industrial PDM sys­ everywhere via a secure internet connec­ tems and can access the documents Evaluation process tion and its user interface was compatible delivered when products pass through with all computer platforms. their acceptance phase, making this data All the evaluations of possible ESO available to ESO project teams and archiving systems were coordinated by As a consequence two projects were observatory staff for operation and main­ the ESO Mechanical Department in started, first setting up the CAD and draw­ tenance. The ESO PDM system is con­ the Technology Division, but other areas ing management system for the Mechani­ figured primarily for that purpose. In addi­ within ESO, such as the Instrumenta- cal Department in May 2011, and then tion the PDM provides collaboration tion Division or the E­ELT Department, defining and configuring the PDM system areas for project teams, where they can which also deal with projects, were in December 2011. create and share working documents, involved so that they could also bring in and exchange documents with contrac­ their respective requirements. tors and other partners in a controlled PDM way. During the system definition and evalua­ tion phase, CERN’s approach of sepa­ Why do we call our technical documenta­ After the contract with BlueCielo for the rating the technical drawing and CAD tion system PDM? PDM is an acronym for implementation of an ESO PDM system (Computer Aided Design) data manage­ Product Data Management. In the pro­ began, an intensive discussion and fact­ ment system from the general technical duction industry, PDM systems are com­ finding process started. Over the years, documentation system was confirmed. plex databases that can track and control in different areas of ESO, slightly different It was decided to go for the drawing and the development of complex machines, working cultures had developed, with CAD data management system from plants or systems, in very great detail.