Glossary
The vocabulary, defined.
The terms a governed read runs on, each defined so it stands on its own, with the page that demonstrates it. The system governs what deserves action first, and effort, engineering, maintenance and eventually capital follow the evidence, not the other way around.
Evidence-governed decision-making for physical assets
Evidence-governed decision-making for physical assets is the discipline of deciding what deserves action, what to fix, fund, or defer across the operations you run, before effort and capital move, and stating what would make that call wrong. Due diligence is standard for the deal; this discipline should be standard for the operations you run.
Governed read
A governed read runs an operational decision through nine questions, each of which can stop the wrong move before effort and resources commit to it. It reads the public evidence, takes a defendable position, and states what would make that position wrong, governing attention and effort first and capital last.
Admissible evidence
Admissible evidence is evidence that has earned the right to carry a claim. A claim must pass physics, observed evidence, the level ceiling, the rules, and a falsification test before it can stand; anything that misses a gate is held back, never allowed to carry an operational decision on its own.
Claim ladder (evidence levels L1 to L4)
The claim ladder is the rule that a read may only claim as much as its evidence supports. It climbs four levels as evidence arrives: a preliminary read (L1), screening against peer benchmarks (L2), site evidence (L3), and field-verifiable measurement (L4). At the preliminary level, ROI, payback and savings claims are not allowed yet.
Misframing
Misframing is directing effort against the wrong variable: the math can be right inside the wrong frame and still govern the wrong variable. A governed read names the dominant misframing before effort, engineering and maintenance move on it, and long before capital does: whether you are working on the right variable at all. A wrong question can survive thousands of correct calculations.
Refusal
A refusal is a read the system declines to deliver because the public evidence does not clear the bar: it declines to estimate rather than manufacture confidence, so no effort is directed and no resources committed on a position that has not earned them. The case library includes a worked refusal, a read declined for insufficient public evidence.
Decision queue
The decision queue is the ranked order of moves on an operational decision: prioritization under uncertainty, with every move ranked by what it costs to learn against how much it changes the call. It governs effort first and capital last, stating what can move now, what must wait, and what not to act on yet.
Decision posture
A decision posture is what a governed read returns on an operational decision: act, defer, validate, or stop. The first review protects one decision; the system keeps governing the asset as the evidence changes. When a failure, an inspection, a production shift, a maintenance finding, a rule change, or a new project moves the picture, the system runs again and the posture is re-earned.