New Version of the EU Construction Products Regulation— How to Overcome Future Challenges

In this article you will learn about:

• The extent to which the new version of the Construction Products Regulation (CPR) is tightening documentation obligations for manufacturers
• The challenges that now need to be overcome in this regard
• The solutions that are available to help manufacturers manage the volume of documentation, keep track of everything, and serve target markets smoothly.

What are the requirements of the Construction Products Regulation?

The EU Construction Products Regulation places a lot of demands (in addition to other things that have nothing to do with documentation) on manufacturers. This is because it requires:

• Complete documentation of the product
• Documentation for every phase of the product lifecycle
• Documentation for each official language of the countries to which the product is exported

A brief example: If a construction product manufacturer produces 2,500 products (quite a realistic product range), this means that a total of 50,000 documents in five target languages must be kept available for installation and commissioning, operation, maintenance, and disposal. In addition to this comes the internal documentation, for example for service or training.

There are a few things that can make manufacturers’ lives easier though, the most important ones being that the documents do not have to be supplied in paper format and do not need to be made available together with the product on the construction site. On the contrary, digital access to the documentation is sufficient, for example in the form of a QR code that leads to the download area of the dedicated website or to a content delivery portal.

The challenges that need to be met

Nevertheless, the required scope is considerable. There are three challenges in particular that have a lot of construction product manufacturers pondering the following:

1. How can you manage such volumes of documentation?
2. How can you keep track of everything with this scope of documentation?
3. How can you serve target markets as smoothly as possible?

There is a tried-and-tested solution for all these challenges. The Machinery Directive* has stipulated similar requirements for a long time now, and for this reason, the majority of machine manufacturers have already been using component content management systems (CCMS) for many years. These permit a way of working that allows the challenges posed by the Machinery Directive and the Construction Products Regulation to be overcome with ease. And they even offer a few functionalities that pave the way to digitalization for companies. Let's take a more detailed look at what a CCMS achieves when it comes to documentation.

Challenge 1: Managing the volume of documentation

Fifty thousand documents sounds like a lot. However, this amount of content decreases when you consider that a large number of text passages (and some graphics too) can be repeated time and time again within the documents. The disposal instructions are the same for virtually every document, warnings take the same form in almost every instance, technical requirements for installation personnel always remain the same, and there are many more similar repetitive sections.

For this reason, component content management systems retain content in modular form: not as documents, but rather as small units of text that are only combined for publication. This modular data storage reduces writing workload considerably and improves text quality at the same time. Changes only need to be made in one system and not in every document. As the content modules are stored irrespective of the layout, they can be used for a wide variety of publications (web or mobile too). The layout is only added for the production of the final document—fully automatically and without additional effort for the technical writing team.

Challenge 2: Keeping track of everything

Admittedly, even with modular data storage there is still a significant amount of content in a CCMS. So how do you keep track of everything? CCMS systems have a few highly specialized tools to help. A powerful search function with save feature enables easy access to individual content modules. The search function in a CCMS can be used not only to access text information, but also, for example, to search for units of content that do not contain an image, were created before the last product release, to which another document refers, etc.

For each content module, you can record whether the information is currently being edited, checked, or approved. Only approved modules can be produced, ensuring that only valid content leaves the company.

The versioning function in CCMS ensures that all content edit statuses remain accessible at all times. This means that the same content module can be used even if some of the products are still running with old parameters while others have already adopted the latest innovations.

Overall, working with a CCMS is a much clearer process than working with a document or file-based method. The technical writing team has a complete overview of edit statuses and pending tasks at all times.

Challenge 3: Serving target markets

Translations represent a significant cost for every business operating on an international scale. Modular data storage reduces this cost considerably, as entire documents no longer need to be translated, just the individual modules which can then be reused in many documents.

In the CCMS, each content module is kept together and managed with the corresponding translations. Each module therefore “knows” whether it has already received an approved translation for a particular language. Ideally, reusing content means that it is even possible to create documents for new product versions without a new translation if, compared to existing products, only the dimensions or technical data have changed.

CCMS systems also simplify translation in yet another way, as they have a powerful standard interface to translation tools (COTI interfaces) and terminology management systems. Data exchange with translation agencies therefore runs smoothly, queries are reduced, ambiguities in the process are avoided, and layout work for the translated content can be eliminated entirely.

Conclusion

To meet the requirements of the Construction Products Regulation, construction product manufacturers must create comprehensive documentation on the entire product lifecycle and make this available for all target languages. Although the quantity of documents can be significant with thousands of products and various target languages, tried-and-tested solutions are available. Manufacturers of construction products should now be looking at establishing an internal technical writing team and implementing a component content management system (CCMS).

A CCMS allows for an efficient and standardized way of working that makes it easier for businesses to meet the requirements of the Construction Products Regulation. They reduce the amount of documentation through the repetition of text passages and enable greater clarity and efficiency when creating documents. Application of the Construction Products Regulation requires precise planning and implementation, but with the right tools and processes, this is very manageable even for small manufacturers.

If you have any questions, please get in touch. We will show you how our SCHEMA ST4 content management system helps you to satisfy the requirements of the new version of the Construction Products Regulation.