---
title: "Configuration Control: Which Drawing Governs | Veldarium"
canonical: https://www.veldarium.com/use-cases/configuration-authority
html: https://www.veldarium.com/use-cases/configuration-authority
description: "Determine which released definition governs a piece of work at a point in time when drawings, redlines, change notices and field copies disagree."
last_updated: 2026-10-12
representation: registry-derived Markdown
---

# Configuration authority

> Determine which released definition governs a piece of work at a point in time when drawings, redlines, change notices and field copies disagree.

## What happens

Released drawings, field redlines and active work disagree. Build to the wrong revision and the error is in steel.

### The chain

1. **Three definitions circulate** (record): A released revision, a bounded field exception, and the revision WP-019 is actually written against. All three are real records.
2. **Precedence, not recency** (record): Release state governs and a newer timestamp does not. The definitions that lose are named as non-controlling rather than quietly dropped.
3. **Active work is re-checked** (work): Work still attached to a superseded definition is listed. Nothing is silently re-pointed at the winner.
4. **The yard builds the wrong thing correctly** (physical): Fabrication, installation and inspection can each be executed perfectly against a definition that does not govern. Quality will not catch it, because the work matches its drawing.
5. **Engineering confirms what governs** (decision): A named owner confirms the governing definition and the scope of any exception. No software releases a drawing or edits a source of record.

**What it costs:** The wrong revision can govern fabrication, installation, or inspection even when a newer-looking file is easy to find.

Several plausible definitions circulate at once. The newest timestamp may be an unapproved upload while the released revision, a bounded field exception, and the revision a work package is actually written against live in different places.

## How VeldBuild answers it

**Question:** Which revision governs this object, zone and effective date, and why?

- **Scope:** One governed object or work package within an explicit hull, block, zone, serial, time, and approved-exception boundary.
- **What it reads:** Release records and revision lineage; Engineering drawings and redlines; Approved change notices; Zone, block or field exceptions; The revision a work package is written against. Evidence it needs: Release and approval records; Revision lineage; Effective-date and applicability metadata; Active-work references.
- **What it computes:** Released state governs; a newer file does not; Resolve effectivity, applicability, supersession and approved exceptions; Name every plausible definition that does not govern. Output: The revision that governs, the ones that do not and why, and the work still written against a superseded one.
- **Left unknown:** Missing approval or release evidence; Conflicting applicability or effectivity; An exception whose approved scope cannot be established
- **Decided by:** VeldBuild proposes the governing definition; it never releases a drawing or alters the source of record; Engineering or configuration control confirms which definition governs (PLM release state; Engineering approval; Configuration-control effectivity and supersession rules)
- **Status:** Synthetic. Implementation: working, in the layer that proposes which record governs. Evidence: demonstrated on synthetic VS-001 records only (Rev C → Rev D on WP-019). Live PLM and configuration connectors are planned.
- **What would prove it on real records:** Compare reconstructed governing revisions with configuration-control decisions across a blinded set of disputed live work objects.

**Next:** [See what reasoning may conclude](https://www.veldarium.com/veldmind). Three records disagreeing is the case VeldMind is bounded for. It cannot erase the disagreement, invent an authority, or promote a majority into truth. The page shows exactly where it stops.

## Contact

To discuss a first VeldBuild deployment, or the company: [chris@veldarium.com](mailto:chris@veldarium.com). Name the release decision your team rebuilds by hand. Do not send confidential information in the first message.

## Sitemap

- [Full site map](https://www.veldarium.com/sitemap.md)
- [Machine context](https://www.veldarium.com/llms.txt)