Sabine Mahr

Impact on SMEs (4th Open Call)

A Digital Product Passport (DPP) will be required for almost any physical product, starting in 2026 for some product groups and then subsequently widening its application range. This means that all manufacturers are required to provide various sustainability-related data on their products, once they enter the European market.
With the advent of the DPP, technical communication will most probably either be part of the DPP or strongly intertwined with the information provided through it. Technical communicators who are capable of providing product information arranged into a machine-readable concept model of the product and its context of use are in high demand on the labour market and in the freelance consultant market. Approaching the modeling task in accordance with the principles that will be laid out in the NWIP will help them to perform their work more easily and in a well-structured manner.

Impact on society (4th Open Call)

The information chunks that convey conceptual information will conform to the “Intelligent information for use” metadata scheme, so that they provide meta-information about their semantics and hence become machine-readable and semantically interoperable with other information, e.g., in other submodels of the AAS. Which is, on the other hand, a prerequisite for their accessibility via differing sensory modalities in humans and therefore for barrier-free communication. This aspect has gained in importance with the imminent entry into force of the European Accessibility Act in June 2025.

Impact on SMEs (6th Open Call)

Digital representations of assets can be found not only in models, simulations and Asset Administration Shells of products, but also in the associated technical documentation that becomes increasingly modular and context-specific. The appropriateness of its semiotic modes, combination of multimodal elements and choice of output media highly depends on the product’s context of use, incorporating users’ capabilities, tasks and goals, physical, technical and organizational environments, and available resources.
The proposed standard supports technical communicators and similar roles in designing, structuring and delivering product-related information to users of that product. It provides advice on how to set up a style guide that determines what modes, multimodal elements and media are appropriate for specified contexts of product use. In SMEs, which cannot afford large technical communication departments with employees covering a broad range of expertise, this approach is essential for streamlining processes and adhering to legal requirements.

Impact on society (6th Open Call)

Technical documentation increasingly turns into a set of fine-grained technical information assets featuring semantics via metadata on context of use parameters. These information assets hence become machine-readable and semantically interoperable with other information, e.g., AAS or DPP submodels. Which is, on the other hand, a prerequisite for their accessibility via differing sensory modalities in humans and therefore for barrier-free communication. This aspect has gained in importance with the imminent entry into force of the European Accessibility Act in June 2025.