The revision process starts when the SMEs revise their original word processor files and send them to the technical writers. As a result, revisions cost dramatically more than the original creation. When the technical writers have finished their revisions, they send the revised documents to the web publishing group. Either way, it's a costly manual process. The cost and effort to revise content can be many times the cost of creating that content in the first place.
Most organizations find themselves caught in a dilemma.
As the pace of change spirals higher, their ability to keep their information fresh, relevant and accessible falls increasingly behind. Some organizations have already implemented systems that solve the challenges described in the previous section. The rest of this section lists specific problem areas of traditional systems and describes how XML-based systems can overcome those problems. To eliminate the conversion from word processing file formats to desktop publishing file formats, both SMEs and technical writers could use the same tools. But that forces a compromise solution that is less than optimal for each group.