When the Documents Disagree: Which One the Factory Follows

A ceramic order looks like one instruction and behaves like four documents. The specification sheet carries the numbers. The approved sample carries the look. The artwork file carries the image. The purchase order carries quantity, price and date. Four people wrote them weeks apart, and none of them read the other three.

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Each was accurate the day it was signed. Then the order moved: a dimension was adjusted in a message, a colour was re-approved on a second sample, an artwork file was replaced, and the order was reissued to split the delivery. Nothing went wrong. The set stopped agreeing.

When a set of documents stops agreeing, the one that governs is rarely the one the buyer would choose. It is the one the person at the machine read last.

See the full ceramic sourcing process map.

Four documents, four readers

The four papers were written for different readers.

The specification sheet is read by whoever sets the machine and by whoever inspects the output. It is a table of numbers and tolerances, and the only document that states what is acceptable.

The sample is read by eye. It answers what a table cannot: how the glaze sits, how the handle feels, whether the finish is satin or gloss.

The artwork file is read by whoever prepares the screen or the decal. It is the only document that defines the image.

The purchase order is read by the planner and by finance. It states quantity, price, terms and date.

None of those readers holds all four. A conflict therefore resolves by department, not by rank.

Why the last document read wins

Work travels with a job card, generated from one source. The decorator receives a print file. The inspector receives a specification. The packer receives a carton instruction. Three people, three papers, three versions of one order.

When the papers disagree, nothing announces it. Each person does the correct thing with the document in front of them, and the order comes out in the shape of whichever arrived last. It is what happens when a set has no declared order.

The same mechanism works on changes. A buyer asks for a taller body in a message, it reaches the mould room, the specification is never reissued, and from that day the order has two heights. Six months later the reorder is quoted from the specification and arrives at the old height. Both runs were built to a document. Only one was built to the order.

The ranking that survives a real order

Each position carries a reason, which is what makes it arguable.

• The specification sheet governs every number: dimensions, capacity, weight, material, tolerance, decoration coverage and packing. It is the only document written to be measured against.
• The artwork file governs the image: geometry, colour count and line weight, but only where the specification leaves colour undefined.
• The approved sample governs appearance: glaze character, finish and handfeel, and the standard the buyer will judge by eye.
• The purchase order governs quantity, price, shipment terms and date. It does not govern quality, whatever its signature block suggests.
• Messages and meeting notes govern nothing until one of the four above is reissued.

Two inversions cause most of the damage: letting the sample rule a dimension, and treating the purchase order as the specification because it gets countersigned.

Why the sample cannot govern a dimension

A sample is one piece. It came off one mould on one day, and it can be good while sitting at the edge of the band, or just outside it.

If the sample governs dimension, every reorder starts from a piece of luck. A rim that measured 84 mm becomes the target, and the factory is asked to reproduce an accident rather than a specification. The specification says 84 mm within a stated tolerance. The sample says 84.2 mm and says nothing about next time.

The sample is strongest where a table cannot answer: whether the glaze is too glossy, whether the handle sits well, whether the colour is the approved one. Used there it is the most useful paper in the set. Used as a drawing, it rewrites your tolerance.

The three conflicts that always come back

Colour first. The artwork says one thing, the sample another, and the specification may say only that colour must match the approved reference. Artwork governs the image, the sample governs the glaze, and where the two disagree the specification must be edited to say which one the buyer meant.

Dimension second. A drawing, a specification and a sample can each carry a different height, usually because a revision reached two of the three. The specification wins, and the sample is re-measured against it.

Packing third, and the expensive one. The purchase order states a carton count because someone calculated freight. The specification states a pack-out because someone calculated breakage. Nobody compared them. The packing section governs, because breakage is a quality outcome and freight is a cost outcome.

Revision control is what makes the ranking work

A ranking only holds if each document carries a version. Four habits do the work.

• One version number per document, one date convention across all four.
• A label on every approved sample stating which specification revision it was approved against. An unlabelled sample is an opinion, and unusable the moment somebody asks what it was approved for. The master sample guide explains how sealed references keep batches identical.
• One named person who may issue a revision. A change that arrives from two people is two changes waiting to conflict.
• Superseded versions archived rather than left on the bench, because the bench is where old documents get picked up by mistake. The spec freeze guide explains how artwork and packing files are locked between orders.

It lets a factory answer a question about your order without guessing which version you mean.

Found late: stop, and let the ranking decide who pays

Conflicts usually surface after the run has started, when the first pieces do not match one of the papers. The factory has one obligation then, and it belongs in the order: stop and ask, rather than choose.

Three outcomes follow. If the piece matches the governing document, the buyer accepts a written deviation or pays for the rework. If it does not, the factory pays. If the document was itself ambiguous, both sides pay for a sentence that was never finished.

The cheapest version happens before tooling, in one paragraph: this is the order of precedence, this is who may change a document, this is what happens when one is silent. Four lines, written once, and the argument that would have arrived in month four never happens.