Knowledge systems
Your documents pass review. Your document set does not.
Reviewed one at a time, a technical document usually holds up. The defects that matter sit in the relationships between documents — a value stated two ways, a record sheet testing something its guide never instructs, a term defined nowhere. Nobody owns the space between documents, so nobody checks it.
Worked example
Two documents. Both correct. One machine that cannot pass its own health check.
Below are extracts from a maintenance manual and a health check guide for the same hydraulic baling press. Each document was written by a competent author and cleared review. Read them as a pair.
HB40-MM-002 · Rev 4
Maintenance Manual — Technical data
System operating pressure 250 bar
Reservoir capacity 180 litres
Hydraulic fluid ISO VG 46
Reviewed in isolation: passes
HB40-HC-004 · Rev 2
Health Check Guide — Check 7, system pressure
power pack test point. Operate
into stalled condition.
Pass criterion 230 bar ± 10
Reviewed in isolation: passes
A machine set correctly to the maintenance manual fails its own health check. An engineer who adjusts it to pass has set the relief valve twenty bar below the stated operating pressure. Neither document is wrong. They are wrong together.
The mechanism
Contradictions should be a query, not a discovery.
We decompose the set into addressable blocks. Every value, interval, term, hazard and compliance claim becomes a row carrying its source and the document it came from. Blocks of the same kind sit in one table across the whole set — so two entries for the same parameter with different values are adjacent rows, not a coincidence someone has to notice.
| Block | Parameter | Value | Source | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HB40-PARAM-002 | Platen force | 400 kN | MM-002 §3 | Complete |
| HB40-PARAM-003 | System operating pressure | 250 bar | MM-002 §3 | Conflict |
| HB40-PARAM-004 | System pressure, acceptance | 230 ± 10 bar | HC-004 Ck 7 | Conflict |
| HB40-PARAM-012 | Filter bowl torque | 45 Nm | MM-002 §5.6 | Complete |
| HB40-PARAM-014 | Accumulator pre-charge | — | No source | Gap |
RULE 01
Same parameter, two values
Contradictory technical data anywhere in the set, including between a manual and a datasheet.
RULE 02
Record line with no check
A form demanding a result the guide never teaches, with no method and no pass criterion.
RULE 03
Undefined safety term
A term used in a safety instruction with no definition block anywhere in the set.
RULE 04
Broken reference
A document number cited by one document and held by nobody.
RULE 05
Claim stated two ways
The same compliance claim worded differently across documents, or unevidenced entirely.
RULE 06
Citation past currency
Legislation or standards references superseded since the document was issued.
What you own
The structured set is the asset. The assistant is a rendering of it.
A retrieval assistant built directly on PDFs produces answers you cannot audit, cannot correct at source, and cannot take elsewhere. We build the structured layer first and make it visible, because that is the part with durable value.
Delivered to you
- The structured set — every value, term, hazard and claim addressable and sourced
- The register — cross-document consistency running continuously, not at review
- The defect report — what was found, where, and its severity
- The documents rebuilt from the structured set
What changes afterwards
- A value cannot change in one document without flagging every other document holding it
- A check cannot be added to a guide without an unmapped line showing on its record sheet
- A legislative change produces an exposure list rather than a manual re-read
- A referenced document leaving the set breaks loudly, immediately
Where this starts
One product family. One set. Findings you can check yourself.
A first engagement takes a single machine or product family — typically a manual, a maintenance document, a health check guide and its record sheet, and the datasheet — and audits the set rather than the documents.
- Scope — establish what documents exist, and what documents are referred to. These are different questions.
- Decompose — values, intervals, terms, hazards and claims into addressable blocks with provenance.
- Register — build the cross-document tables and run the rules.
- Report — defects with severity, each traced to the documents that produce it.
- Rebuild — the corrected set rendered from the structured source.
Before you send anything
The NDA is signed first. Then the drawings arrive.
Assessing documentation means seeing drawings, specifications, risk assessments and technical files — the material a manufacturer is most careful with. That is understood, and the order of events reflects it.
01 · Before
Nothing is received unsigned
A non-disclosure agreement is in place before any technical material is sent. Yours or ours, whichever your legal team prefers — the point is that it exists first, not who drafted it.
02 · During
Used only for your engagement
Material is used solely for the work it was supplied for. It is not shared with any third party, and it is not used as an example, a portfolio piece or a demonstration.
03 · After
Returned or destroyed on request
At the close of an engagement, material is returned or destroyed on request, and confirmation is given in writing.
Send one document set. We will tell you what sits between them.
A scoped audit of one product family, with findings you can verify against your own documents.