Progress Report: How Bühler Succeeded in Migrating Data to SCHEMA ST4

With its 12,500 employees and a presence in 140 countries, Bühler is a global enterprise. The Swiss company manufactures machines and systems primarily for food production. Its technical writing department is also international – of the 64 technical writers and other ST4 users, 15 work in Switzerland (plus 10 freelancers), while the remaining team members are located in other European countries, as well as India and China. A range of different content management systems and local workflows have so far characterized the work in technical documentation, but this situation has been gradually changing for some time now.

“At Bühler, we have a vision of digital product information,” explains IT project manager Nataly Hüeblin. “We want to achieve this by standardizing our IT architecture and our processes. For us, the link at the heart of this vision is SCHEMA ST4, which enables us to make our content available to our customers anytime, anywhere, and on any channel.”

Although SCHEMA ST4 was implemented back in 2021, technical documentation is not yet operational with the new system at all locations – some migrations are still pending. As such, Bühler has analyzed the first data migration in detail in order to gain knowledge for the future. IT specialist Nataly Hüeblin and technical writer Daniel Ott provided an insight into the results of this work at Quanos Connect 2024.

‘Light’ data migration

Before the first migration from the previous CMS to SCHEMA ST4, Bühler had to decide what data to transfer. The old content management system contained a considerable volume of documents – 3,600 manuals with an average of 75 pages each and in 26 languages. “We therefore opted for ‘light’ migration,” says Daniel Ott. “We focus primarily on products and documents that are in the ‘sales’ life cycle status.” The current document version is transferred in German, the entry language of the old CMS. “And we did this only on demand, in other words according to these criteria if required,” he adds.

Once the IT and technical writing departments had formulated this migration strategy and drawn up a schedule for implementation, they brought management and the business units on board to obtain their consent and budget approval. They also provided information about the upcoming data migration on the intranet. Even at this early stage, it was possible to foresee that additional work would be required to create the basis for a modular and scalable content strategy by making adjustments in SCHEMA ST4.

As the technical writing team had previously worked with a component content management system, they were already familiar with this format and the changeover was easier to manage. Translations have been initiated with SCHEMA ST4 since its introduction. Daniel Ott recommends assessing at an early stage what impact the implementation of a new content management system will have on an existing translation memory system.

Strategy adjustment on an ongoing basis – not just at the outset

The software manufacturer provided support with the introduction of SCHEMA ST4. “Quanos accompanied us throughout the process with impressive efficiency. It was clear to us that the company possesses a vast amount of expertise,” says Daniel Ott. A few technical stumbling blocks were quickly cleared out of the way. “The technical writing and IT teams certainly learned a few things along the way, but we coped well,” says Nataly Hüeblin, adding: “The key thing we learned was communication. Throughout the process, discussions with the business units came up time and again.”

So what was behind this? The essential data migrations meant that colleagues had to wait longer for changes to existing documents and bear higher costs than in the past. While IT and the technical documentation team had no doubt that their migration strategy made sense, this was brought into question by other departments – despite them agreeing to this beforehand. A conflict of priorities arose, because while the business was mainly looking at costs, the IT and technical writing teams focused on the vision of digital product information. This required certain additional work after the migration, such as the modularization of certain content. “When it comes to the next migrations, we know that we need to coordinate more frequently so that the business remains aware of the purpose of the migration and the full migration costs are budgeted in good time,” explains Nataly Hüeblin. The IT specialist has one final piece of advice for technical writing teams planning a data migration: “Stay tough! Switch off the old content management system on the agreed date and don't allow yourself to be pushed around when the business units want to see changes made in the old system instead. Going down that road will only delay the final changeover.”

Backing up data and shutting down the previous content management system

At Bühler, the old CMS is still being used for translations, but it is scheduled to be shut down at the end of 2024. The existing data has already been backed up outside of the old content management system, meaning that required elements can be imported into ST4 ‘on demand’ using the migration script. Daniel Ott recommends preparing for the shutdown of the old CMS in good time and keeping an eye on the notice periods for maintenance contracts in order to avoid unnecessary costs.