Guides and self-checks

Check first.
Then talk.

Four documents · German and English · five to six pages each · built to be used on your own

Everything here is written so that you can apply it without us. If a question is still open afterwards, that is a good reason for a conversation. Not before.

01 — The reason

Why these documents exist

The question no document can answer for you.

Against which document do you check today whether your machine behaves correctly? That question can only be answered on your line, not in a whitepaper. What these documents do: they hand you the criteria for it — and a yardstick to hold your own answer against.

A passed acceptance test is a snapshot of a sample: it holds for the section that was checked and for the moment it was checked. What was never observed has not been tested — it simply did not come up.
02 — The documents

Four documents.
Each with a result, not with a message.

Two of them are self-checks: you enter something and receive a rating you keep even if you never speak to us. Two are briefings for decision-makers.

Alongside these, the existing whitepapers and checklists remain available — Digital Transformation, Smart Manufacturing, the Selmo Method brochure, the comparison, the Machinery Regulation whitepaper and the six-point checklist.

03 — AI

AI accelerates translating.
Not checking.

This is not a warning about the technology. It is a statement about which part of engineering gets faster — and which does not.

AI produces software today in hours instead of weeks. The evidence that this software realizes the defined behavior still depends on observation — and observation does not scale with computing power but with real time on a real line.

Without a normative behavior reference, AI does not accelerate your engineering; it accelerates the production of unverified translations.
04 — The foundations

If you want to go deeper,
start here.

Four pages carry the complete argument. Verification asks: was it built right? Validation asks: was the right thing built? Whoever knows that distinction reads everything else faster.

WhiteBox does not mean you can see the code. WhiteBox means conformity becomes decidable instead of a matter of judgment. That is the difference all four documents are about.

05 — How we handle numbers

When we name numbers,
we also name where they come from.

The causal chain holds without a number: less interpretation → less uncertainty → less searching → shorter engineering, commissioning and diagnosis cycles. The magnitude of the effect does not hold in general.

−50 to −80 %commissioning time
−40 to −70 %unplanned downtime
+3 to +10 %OEE
−25 to −50 %maintenance
+5 to +20 %output

Ranges from delivered customer projects. The actual value is project-specific and is measured in the assessment on your machine.

You will find these ranges again in our documents — everywhere at the same magnitude and with the same footnote. If you ever come across a second range for the same quantity, that is a mistake, and we will gladly correct it.

06 — Ongoing

What comes into being
between the documents.

A document appears rarely and wants to be complete. Articles and announcements come continuously. That is why they stand apart here — and not as a fifth tile among the four documents.

A post explains a structure. Whether it holds on your line is shown by measurement — in the assessment, with a stated baseline.

What the method does not do

Decidability requires technology. Where no reaction is detectable, nothing can be decided formally either — the method makes that visible, it does not remove it.

After reading

Which of these questions can you answer today, on your line?

Go through the open ones together

15–30 minutes. No offer, no presentation — just your line and the questions that stayed open.