A Structured Link Document as a New Means for Composing and Publishing Technical Customer Documentation in Extranets and Intranets

Internet technology together with the SGML based XML language family provide means to develop technical customer document management in inter-organisational industrial projects. The purpose of this exploratory study is to describe the characteristics of an inter-organisational industrial project, the problems related to the management of technical customer documentation and the possibilities of the new information technology to solve some of the problems. The model for technical customer document management in an inter-organisational network is presented. The model indicates that more precise investigation is needed and that future research should concentrate on developing systematic extranet and intranet design methodology which focuses on link management.