Draft
Derives the draft from your template and the project documents — operating manual, declarations, document index, a compilation of component limits. Asks about what it cannot derive from the files.
A plant builder delivers a hydrogen transfer station to a research institution. Material certificates complete. ATEX certification for every component. Leak test on record. An explosion protection assessment signed by an accredited expert.
And the operating manual fails to pass on one of that assessment's conditions — the very one the zone-free classification rests on.
Hydrogen, fluid group 1, outdoor installation, explosive atmosphere. One-off build for a customer with its own safety apparatus. The documentation is above average — that is not a courtesy, it is precisely why this case matters.
A completeness check would have found almost nothing here. Every single document is present, signed and technically sound.
The explosion protection assessment declares the plant zone-free. But its summary ties that conclusion to two explicit conditions. The operating manual — the document the operator actually receives — passes on neither of them in that form.
“… the following additional measure is required: … a regular helium leak test must be carried out. Replacing the compression fittings after they have been opened is mandatory.”
“Permissible methods are: suitable leak detectors / portable H₂ detectors … Helium leak test: may be applied as an extended method, where practicable.”
The condition the zone-free classification rests on is therefore not secured in later operation. Not because anyone was careless — both documents are carefully made.
But because both were released on the same day and nobody had the job of reading one against the other. The assessment's appendix even still refers to the draft of the operating manual from three days earlier.
Each backed by quotation and source. Each phrased as a question — for every one of them there may be an explanation that does not appear in the folder.
Currency, change, coverage — three gaps open up between design and document. This case shows a fourth, sitting in between: between two documents that are both current, both correct and both signed.
Copying is silent — and that is exactly where the hand-over fails.
This project's operating manual came out of a template. The template was good. It simply knew nothing of the two conditions the expert had written into his assessment three days earlier. And when you copy, nobody asks.
The agent does not copy. It derives the draft — and reads every source that belongs to it, the assessment among them. A condition stated there cannot get lost along that path: it lands in the chapter where it belongs, or the agent asks where it should go.
This page shows a diagnosis: seven points found after the fact. Checking after the fact beats not checking at all. But it is not the point.
The operating manual is written, released, signed. Only then does someone notice a condition is missing. Now somebody has to go back, correct it, re-release it — and explain why.
The agent derives the draft from template and project documents. The assessment is one of its sources. The condition is in chapter 11 before anyone reads the document for the first time.
Anyone who sets out to write an operating manual has to read the assessment — otherwise they do not know what belongs in it. That is precisely why reconciliation happens anyway while drafting. It does not cost an extra pass. It is the pass.
The documentation check on an existing folder is therefore the diagnosis, not the service. It shows you, on a completed project, what happens when that pass is missing.
A corporation has one. There, people exist whose only job is to write the draft, hold it against the assessments, and notice when a new revision supersedes everything that came before. A plant builder with ten design engineers does not have one. So the engineer does it on the side, on a Friday afternoon, out of the last project.
Derives the draft from your template and the project documents — operating manual, declarations, document index, a compilation of component limits. Asks about what it cannot derive from the files.
Reads every relevant source while writing. Every condition from an assessment lands in the chapter where it belongs. The contradiction never arises and does not have to be found.
Notices when a new revision supersedes a piece of evidence. The assessment stood on rev. C, rev. D sat in the folder — unnoticed, because nobody was responsible. The agent flags it before anyone asks.
Documentation is not the end of a project. It is a state.
An assessment rests on a particular design status. A declaration points to a drawing number. An operating manual describes a machine that may no longer exist in that form today. Every change to the design puts a chain of documents under suspicion — and nobody has the task of following that chain. This is exactly where the currency gap opens, and exactly where the agent keeps working long after the project has closed.
In machinery safety this boundary is not a formality. It is the core.
One finding had to be withdrawn in this case — it rested on file names rather than on the drawing as read. That is precisely why the agent exposes the source for every point. What is not supported is marked as not supported.
All seven points with quotation and source, the four gaps at a glance, and the line between agent and engineer. You get the PDF right after submitting, plus a short email from me. The PDF is in German.
We take one completed project of yours. You release the folder as it is, with no preparation — and we put the open points on the table. If we find nothing, it ends there, and you have certainty. The entry point is a diagnostic workshop for €1,200 net.
Arrange a 30-minute call →