Technical product documentation — Use of main documents
5 Main document principle
The basis of the main document principle is that each part or assembly is specified by a main document.
When several documents are needed to specify a part or an assembly, one document shall be designated the
main document to ensure that the information is kept together. All other documents, referred to in the main
document, are considered complementary documents (see Figure 1). It is recommended that companies
decide which document type(s) shall be adopted as the main document(s). This International Standard gives
only a few examples of document types that may be used as main documents.
In order to enable cross-use and reuse of information, there shall be no references to the main document in
the complementary documents. This means that complementary documents are independent and can be
used in different applications. However, if cross-using or reusing of documents are not needed, and there is a
one-to-one relationship between the main document and a complementary document, there could be a
reference in a complementary document to a main document.
When complementary documents are revised, the connection to main document(s) shall be shown by a
where-used analysis.
Document list (see Figure 6), in which the complementary documents area is predominant.
NOTE The complete information is available in a document set. The main document is the document list that
specifies all complementary documents.
3.3
main document
document containing the complete compilation of the information by which a part or an assembly is specified
NOTE The information can be given directly in the main document or by reference to complementary documents.