As-built records

Real hardware is rarely built exactly to the design: a bore ends up a little too large and is accepted, a purchased part is replaced by a second-source part, a weld is reworked. An as-built record keeps what one physical unit really is, next to the design it was built to. The background and how other systems solve it are on the research page As-built records.

A unit is an item

An item of type As-built (numbers AB-000001, …) is one physical unit or one lot. It has the usual lifecycle, revisions, check-out/check-in, files (photos, measurement reports, a 3D scan, the traveller) and change orders. A new revision of the as-built item is a new state of the same unit – after a rework, a repair or a retrofit; the older revision stays for traceability.

On top of that an as-built revision carries

• a build record – the design revision (part, assembly or software) the unit was built to, the serial or lot number, the build date and a note;
• deviations – how the unit departs from its design and what was decided;
• its BOM – the regular BOM of the revision, holding what was really installed.

Like BOM lines, build record and deviations belong to the revision: they change only while it is checked out by you, Revise copies them, and they are frozen at release.

Recording a built unit

On a part, assembly or software revision, the Built units card has Record a built unit: serial or lot number, build date, optionally the item number, name, note and project group of the new as-built item. TeamCraft creates the as-built item (revision A, checked out by you) with its build record and, for an assembly, a copy of the design’s BOM – in one step. Edit that BOM to what was really installed; Compare BOM with the design shows the differences.

An as-built item created with New item starts without a build record; enter it in the Built to card of the revision (item number and revision of the design – empty means its latest revision).

Rules:

• The serial number is unique per design item (letters compared without case). The revisions of one unit share it; another unit with the same serial is refused and named (or called “another unit” when it is in a group you may not read).
• The design revision may be in work, in review or released – prototypes are often built before the release. An obsolete design revision is refused for a new unit or a new build record (“record the unit against a current revision of the design”). A unit that was already built to a revision that later became obsolete keeps its record and may still correct serial, date and note.
• The as-built item may live in another project group than the design. Copying the BOM out of a restricted group needs a manager of that group, as for Save as.

Deviations and their disposition

Each deviation has a kind (dimension, material, component, process, other), the feature (e.g. Bore Ø12 H7), what was designed and what was built (text, e.g. 12.000 +0.018/0 → 12.035), a note and the disposition:

An as-built revision holds at most 1000 deviations.

Release

A change order with an as-built revision cannot be submitted while that revision has no build record or an open deviation. The engineering decision on the deviations is the review of the change order itself.

A project group can ask for more: with A reviewer confirms each “use as is” deviation in its review policy, a reviewer of the change order confirms every use as is concession on its own (Confirm in the deviation table) before their approval counts, and the person who recorded the deviation cannot confirm it. See Read permissions and review policies.

The design side

The Built units card of a part, assembly or software revision lists the units built to any revision of the item – the latest revision of each unit, with serial number, the design revision it was built to, open deviations and a Newer design marker when a later design revision was released after the one the unit was built to. Units in groups you may not read are only counted. A design item that units were built to cannot be deleted.

When you may read the unit but not the design (the design is in a restricted group), the build record shows a “restricted item” placeholder instead of the design’s number, name and revision.

What is not included

• Pack and Go (…/package) of an as-built revision contains its files, BOM and manifest like any other revision, but not the build record and the deviations; read those with GET …/as-built (REST) or get_revision (MCP) and keep the export next to the ZIP if another system needs them.
• Not yet: retrofit campaigns (change propagation to built units), serial numbers on as-built BOM lines, numeric tolerance checks and the import of measurement reports.

REST API and assistants

The endpoints are listed in the REST API reference. The MCP tool get_revision returns as_built for an as-built revision and built_units for a design (MCP server).