On the shop floor, the manufacturer decides

The written side of a plant carries a lot of expert judgment. Records that often count:

• Your MES or ERP history of production and inventory
• Supplier quotes and RFQ threads
• DFM notes and feedback
• NCRs and corrective action files
• Instructions for each job and its routing

Many manufacturers work from drawings that belong to customers. Those can be excluded customer by customer, and every customer name in the copy is swapped for a placeholder. Whether customer material belongs under your agreements is for you and counsel to answer. We do not offer legal advice on it.

The originals remain in your systems, and nobody asks for a password. Buyers license a prepared copy of approved records, and only after you have checked a sample. Any line, process or time period you consider core to your edge can be held back.

Any program under export controls can be left out entirely. You mark them, and they never reach the copy. When in doubt about a job, the default is to exclude it.

Ask for the estimate first, then let the short call divide your records into what is yours, what customers own, and what is restricted. The scope usually starts with the first group. Production carries on the entire time, because no one has to access your systems.

Only approved material reaches a buyer, as a prepared copy with nothing added. Picture a corrective action file running from the initial defect report to its root cause and permanent fix, with names of customers, suppliers and operators removed. Patterns like that, repeated across years of production, are what AI labs want to learn from. Machines, recipes and vendor terms remain where they are, and whatever you consider a trade secret can stay out of scope.