The assembly becomes visible when you release it

A file sitting on a server is not yet information. It becomes information when a customer opens it through the serial number of their machine and orders a position. From that moment you are on record for what you showed. A wrong position, an old part number with no note, an assembly that never belonged to this machine: that is no longer a draft error in design. That is a statement by the company.

That is why release is not an extra button for anxious organisations. It is the point at which someone says: this assembly, for these serials, in this revision, the customer may see. Before that, the drawing is a working sheet. After that, it is an ordering path.

What is checked before release

The check is whether every position the customer can hit has a line in the bill of materials. Whether every line that should be orderable has a place on the sheet. Whether superseded numbers are marked as superseded, and whether the series belongs to this sheet and not to the neighbouring one. Whether the balloons do not cover each other and the lines arrive at the part. That is a short list. On a real sheet it is rarely green at the first pass.

Gaps are marked, not filled. A position with no bill-of-materials line stays a gap, visible to the person who releases, invisible to the customer for as long as you do not release. A number on the sheet that you do not know stays an unknown number. Guessing it so that release goes faster moves the error to the customer. The customer notices when the part does not fit. You notice when the parcel comes back.

The check is done by someone who can answer for the assembly. That does not have to be design alone, and not service alone. It is the person who has both documents side by side and the nerve to leave a gap standing. An automatic import can show hits and gaps. It cannot sign off the release, because it does not know whether the gap is a forgotten line or a part that was never meant to be ordered on its own.

Visible does not yet mean complete

A released assembly is not a promise that the whole machine is documented. It is a promise for this assembly. The customer sees what you have released, and does not see the drafts beside it. That is uncomfortable when they ask for a part that is not yet on a released sheet. It is more honest than a sheet that pretends to be finished.

You answer that awkward request as you do today: in person, with whatever the file still holds. The portal does not replace that answer. It stops the finished assemblies from having to take the same slow path as the unfinished ones. Two speeds are fine. One speed for everything, namely the speed of the unfinished drawing, is the state you already know.

Release can be taken back

An error on a released sheet is no reason to throw out release as an idea. It is a reason to withdraw the sheet, correct it, and release it again. In between, the customer does not see the assembly, or sees the corrected revision once it is ready. What they should not see is a quiet overwrite, in which position 6 in the morning was a different part from the afternoon, without the morning's request still knowing that.

Keep the revision that belonged to a request. Not from love of archive science, but because otherwise the request can no longer be traced. The part number in the email and the part number on today's sheet may diverge if you have superseded the part. They may not diverge because someone replaced the file and the old one no longer exists.

Releasing is a sentence. Taking back is one as well. Both sentences are spoken by the manufacturer. The customer speaks the sentence on the drawing you left them.

Who may speak the sentence

Not everyone who can upload the file. Uploading is a technical act. Release is a judgement about the assembly. It sits with the person who can say, for this assembly, that position and line belong together and that this series may open this sheet. In small companies that is often the same person who also answers the phone. In larger ones it is two people, and then it has to be clear who speaks the sentence. Two people who each believe the other has released are the most common way a draft reaches the customer.

Write the sentence down, even if it is only a date and a name next to the assembly. Not for an audit you have not claimed, but for the day someone asks why the customer saw position 6. The name does not have to be public. It has to be findable in the company. An anonymous button labelled "publish" is convenient, and later nobody owns it.

The same person, or another who is expressly named, takes it back. Taking back is not a punishment for the person who released. It is the normal path when design changes a revision or service notices a wrong assignment. Anyone who treats taking back as an embarrassment leaves the wrong sheet out there, because nobody wants to press the button. The wrong sheet is the embarrassment. The button is the repair.

What the customer sees in between

If they see nothing, that is honest, as long as it is not nothing for weeks while the phone still pretends the drawing is ready. Say that this assembly is not released at the moment, and take the request on the old path. The old path is a description in words. It is worse, and it is the right path, for as long as the sheet cannot support a request.

If they see the previous revision, that revision still has to be right. An old revision is not a transition when you already know a position on it will change. It is the same error with an earlier date. Better a gap in visibility than a position that points at the part from before the change. Requests that already went out under the old revision keep the part number they had. They are not quietly rewritten to the new number. The quote you make from them may name the successor. The request itself stays what the customer sent.

Release is not publication of the whole machine

A machine has many assemblies. Release applies to the ones you have checked. The others stay invisible, even if the files are already in the company. The customer who sees one station and not the other will ask. The question is allowed. The answer is: this sheet is not released yet, we will take the request as it is. That is uncomfortable in the first month and calm afterwards, because the finished sheets are no longer in the same queue.

Do not release "provisionally" to avoid the question. Provisional is a draft with an audience. The customer does not distinguish the label from a normal drawing. They tap, they send, they expect the part. If you do not trust the sheet yourself, leave it in the working state. The week you spend on that is shorter than the week a wrong part costs.