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Challenge

A rapidly growing semiconductor company faced a critical scalability crisis. With only three technical writers supporting 1,200 employees globally, the documentation team was drowning in manual processes. Engineers were submitting content on napkins and scraps of paper, and the team spent countless hours debating font sizes and fixing corrupted templates rather than focusing on content quality.

The desktop publishing approach that had worked for years was no longer sustainable. As the company's products became more complex—with datasheets containing hundreds of pages of electrical specifications and register descriptions—the writing team couldn't keep pace. The traditional model would have required hiring 30+ technical writers to maintain quality and velocity, but management wasn't willing to make that investment.

Key pain points included:

• Limited collaboration: Engineers wanted to contribute directly but couldn't work effectively in the tool they were using.
• Manual data entry: Writers manually transcribed technical specifications, introducing multiple opportunities for errors
• Format debates: Engineers and writers wasted hours discussing fonts, spacing, and table breaks
• Template corruption: Non-writers would inadvertently break formatting standards
• No scalability path: Content demands were exploding faster than headcount could grow

Solution

After consulting with peers at National Instruments who had recently made the transition, the documentation manager decided to migrate to DITA XML with Heretto as their CCMS. The decision wasn't just about structured content—it was about fundamentally reimagining how technical documentation gets created.

The team implemented a collaborative authoring model that:

• Automated content generation: Engineers wrote scripts to pull electrical specifications directly from source databases into DITA topics
• Eliminated format debates: A locked stylesheet removed the ability to make ad-hoc formatting changes
• Enabled true collaboration: Engineers could work directly in XML without corrupting templates
• Streamlined translation: XLIFF packages could be sent to translation vendors and reimported seamlessly
• Maintained portability: Non-proprietary DITA ensured the content could move between tools if needed

The migration happened at a pivotal moment—just as the company was poised for explosive growth. Rather than continuously hiring writers to keep up, they invested upfront in infrastructure that would scale automatically.

Results

The transformation exceeded expectations, delivering benefits the team hadn't even anticipated:

Dramatic Efficiency Gains

• 5 writers now handle the workload of 30: Automation and collaboration eliminated the need for massive headcount increases
• 30-50% time savings: Writers stopped spending hours on formatting discussions and template repairs
• Hundreds of pages auto-generated: Register descriptions and electrical specifications flow directly from engineering databases

Enhanced Quality & Accuracy

• Single source of truth: Auto-generated content eliminates transcription errors in critical specifications
• Writers focus on value-add work: Team now spends time on language quality, inclusive language, and legal compliance rather than data entry
• Engineers in appropriate roles: Technical staff now maintain accuracy at the source rather than debating font sizes

Business Impact

• Reduced legal risk: Datasheets serve as contracts for parts—accuracy is non-negotiable
• Faster time to market: Content moves from draft to customer more quickly
• Translation cost savings: Efficient XLIFF workflows and translation memory reduce localization expenses
• Acquisition integration: Easy to fold in content from acquired companies regardless of original format

"Without DITA and automation, we would need 30 highly skilled technical writers to keep up with our documentation demands. Now, with 80 pages of a 200-page document being auto-generated, our small team can focus on the editorial work that truly requires our expertise—reading, editing, and ensuring clarity for customers." — Senior Technical Publications Manager

Cultural Transformation

Perhaps the most surprising outcome was how quickly skeptics became advocates. The technical writer who was most resistant to change—who had worked in the previous desktop publishing system for over a decade—became one of structured authoring's biggest proponents.

When his division was later divested to another company that wanted to return to the old unstructured approach, he strongly advocated against it, making the same arguments about scalability and efficiency that had initially convinced his team to migrate.

This shift illustrated a broader truth: once writers experience the freedom from formatting debates, the power of content reuse, and the ability to focus on high-value editorial work, they rarely want to return to manual, document-centric workflows.

Conclusion

This semiconductor company's journey demonstrates that structured content isn't just about technology—it's about enabling the right people to do the right work. By removing formatting as a point of contention and enabling engineers to contribute directly to documentation, they created a sustainable model that scales with business growth.

The key insight: rather than hiring proportionally more writers as the company grew, they invested in infrastructure that multiplied the effectiveness of their existing team. The result is a documentation operation that can support a global semiconductor company with a fraction of the headcount traditional approaches would require.

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About Heretto

Heretto's CCMS and content delivery platform enables companies to create, manage, and publish structured content at scale. Purpose-built for DITA XML from the ground up, Heretto helps technical documentation teams collaborate effectively, automate content generation, and deliver information across multiple channels—from traditional PDFs to modern web experiences.

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