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In plain terms: Most software can tell you what a ship is today. Almost no software can tell you why it is that way. Forge is built to answer the second question.

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Two different clocks

Every engineering project is really running two clocks at once.

The State Clock

Answers “what exists today?” The current drawings, the current bill of material, the design as it stands right now. Most CAD and ERP systems handle this clock well.

The Event Clock

Answers “why are things the way they are?” Which rule applied, what prior design was used, what evidence supported the choice, who approved it, what got replaced. Almost no system handles this clock at all.

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Why the second clock matters

The state clock is enough when nothing ever changes. But shipbuilding is nothing but change: rules get updated, materials get substituted, prior assumptions turn out to be wrong. When that happens, you need to answer questions like:
  • “Are we still compliant given the new rule version?”
  • “What would change if we substituted this material?”
  • “Which past decisions need to be looked at again, and in what order?”
You cannot answer any of those from the state clock alone. You need the history of why every choice was made.

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Forge is the event clock

Forge is the event clock for engineering decisions. Everything else in the system flows from that. The at its core records not just what the ship is, but the full reasoning chain behind every decision that shaped it. That is the whole idea in one sentence. The rest of the Concepts section unpacks how Forge makes it work in practice:

Sources vs. Decisions

The two kinds of things Forge handles, and why the distinction matters.

How a Decision Gets Made

A worked example, step by step.