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Peter C. Johnson 1993-1996
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I worked as the documentation manager, usually as the organization's only writer, but sometimes directing the work of a second contract writer. Our enterprise software had over 250 user and system manuals.
The work was done in Bookmaster and Bookmanager; I began the conversion to Frame 5.1.
My tasks fell into several categories.
- COPICS and CIMAPPS documentation changes. COPICS and CIMAPPS are families of enterprise software that covered materials, parts, inventory, shipping, and the other typical aspects of manufacturing. COPICS is based on DL/I, a hierarchical database; CIMAPPS is based on DB2, which is relational. Many COPICS users preferred to upgrade to DB2, rather than buy CIMAPPS. I revised manuals and wrote special guides for all categories of customers.
- Translation to English. Much of the development material was in German. The original development was done at the German lab in Boeblingen; I speak, read, and write German.
- Porting to AIX. COPICS and CIMAPPS run on big mainframes under MVS and VM. Many customers want to go "small" and use the reduced size and increased speed of the RISC/6000. I completed an evening course in UNIX shell programming to help support this.
- I also took up the slack editing documentation for an AS/400-based package called CMAS, Construction Management and Accounting System.
- IBM ERP Solutions started to sell network, support, and installation programs. To advertise these services, I wrote marketing booklets and brochures.