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Write specifications once, keep them always current

The spec is the text everyone is supposed to design against. When it lives in three Word files and an email, someone decides against last week’s truth. The value is a spec you can point to, and that follows when the requirement changes.

The Colleag workspace in the foreground. In the background two colleagues assemble an electronics prototype.

A spec that holds when someone actually builds to it.

You wrote the spec. Then a requirement, an interface or a battery changed. The person soldering to the March printout and the person reading the SharePoint file are not building the same thing. Colleag.ai keeps the specification in the same tree as requirements and test. When something changes, it shows up in the spec, not three weeks later in a “final_final”. Two people should be able to point to the same sentence in the room.

Everyone should design to the same sentence

The spec is not a document you “have”. It is the text mechanics, electronics and test should build to. When it lives in three Word files and an email, two people build against different truths. The value is a spec you can point to in the room, and that follows when the battery requirement or the interface changes.

The change should show up in the spec, not in a new file

When a system requirement changes, Colleag.ai finds the specs that point to it and drafts the updated sections. You approve instead of rewriting from scratch. What disappears is the folder of “_v2” and “final_final”, where nobody knows which one applies on the floor.

The same spec for every discipline

Hardware, firmware, quality and manufacturing should read the same current version, with history that shows what changed and why. Then the review stops being two people quoting different printouts.

Key benefits

  • Automatic update propagation when upstream requirements change
  • Full traceability from system requirements to detailed specifications
  • Version history with clear change rationale
  • Accessible to every discipline, not locked in individual files
  • Consistent format and structure across all specifications

Read more

How do you keep specifications current when the BOM changes in Monitor ERP? Colleag.ai pushes the requirement change to the specs that point at it, and a human approves. PLM has the item. LCM has the revision. The project tool has a ticket. None of them rewrite the spec against your procedure.

When the BOM changes in Monitor, several specs still point at the old part. Colleag.ai finds the specs that are hit and proposes the rewrite against your procedure. A human approves. That is not a PLM batch job and not a Jira ticket.

LCM can show the revision is released. It does not rewrite the requirement text. ERP has the new article and no spec. The difference is a sourced answer: which file, which article, which SOP says the change must be approved.

How this differs from ERP, PLM, LCM and project systems

ERP
ERP knows the article, not the requirement chain the article must meet.
PLM
PLM links a document to an item. It does not propagate prose downstream.
LCM
LCM changes status. It does not say which spec sections died.
Project management systems
“Update the spec” as a task is coordination. The change in the text is Colleag.ai.

What Colleag.ai does here that those systems do not

  • Changes propagate, a human approves
  • Traceability from system requirement to detail
  • The same current version for every discipline

See it in action

Book a 30-minute demo and see how Colleag.ai handles this for your team.

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