In an industrial company, a drawing can move between folders several times before delivery. It goes from engineering to quality, then joins the file handed over to the customer. Its name and location change; the decisions that concern it must remain understandable.
KARL Core reinforces the distinction between a resource, the place where it appears, and the sources that make it possible to find again. A move or a rename preserves its identity. A copy becomes a distinct resource, whose provenance remains indicated. A link to an external source can be corrected while keeping the history of the change.
This separation avoids a frequent ambiguity: two identical files can correspond to two different uses and two different responsibilities. A resemblance provides a lead for reconciliation; it is not enough to merge their identities.
The fictional case of Ateliers du Rivage
Take the fictional case of Ateliers du Rivage, a manufacturer of packaging machines. A housing drawing serves as the basis for two orders. For the first, it stays unchanged. For the second, it is copied before being adapted to the customer's constraints. A few weeks later, a technician finds two visually identical copies in different spaces.
With correctly recorded links, the team can distinguish the original drawing, its working copy and the sources that designate them. It examines similar candidates instead of deciding that they necessarily represent the same equipment.
Read the diagram notation
flowchart LR
A[Reference drawing] -->|Rename| B[Same resource, new name]
A -->|Copy for an order| C[New resource, provenance kept]A working method that changes
The working method changes: it starts by identifying the resource concerned, then consults its location and its versions. The file path becomes a means of access, without carrying alone the whole responsibility for identification.
Measuring a real benefit
The company can track the number of ambiguous links, the correction of attributions, and the time needed to find the right reference. These indicators track changes after deployment. They depend in particular on the quality of the declared links; reconciling sources is not an automatic synchronization of all tools.