Open any use case page on the site and you'll see the same shape: a hero with the title and a knowledge-graph link, then five tabs that walk from what is this and why does it matter through what's actually broken to what to do about it — with evidence in every section.
That structure isn't cosmetic. It mirrors the same underlying ontology that powers the knowledge graph: every use case has the same building blocks (definition, benefits, stakeholders, value leaks, root causes, enablers, KPIs, financial metrics, data sources), and they're connected with influence scores validated across the entire corpus. Once you know where to look, you can read any use case quickly because you already know what each section is going to tell you.
The example throughout this page is the Real-Time Quality Accountability Dashboard — same use case we walked through in How This Site Is Organized.
The hero
At the top of every use case page:
- Process area as the headline (e.g., " Accountability") — this is the conceptual scope of the use case, what it's fundamentally about.
- Full title as the subtitle (e.g., "Real-Time Quality Accountability Dashboard") — more specific, often phrased the way the corpus generation pipeline named it.
- Department badge showing the home department.
- Summary — a one-paragraph plain-English description of what the use case is.
- View Knowledge Graph button — drops you into the use case's knowledge graph, which is where the ontology becomes visual. (See Reading the Knowledge Graph.)
Tab 1 — Overview
What this tab answers
What is this, and why should I care?
What Is It?
A definition section — what the use case actually is, framed for someone who's never encountered it. Not a sales pitch, not a feature list — a structural definition.
Why Is It Important?
Either prose or a benefit list. When benefits are present, they're shown as bullets with a name and description — the strategic, operational, and financial reasons this use case is worth doing.
Key Metrics Impacted
The KPIs that are affected by this use case — both the metric name and how it's expected to move. Metrics link to a KPI library and a contextual graph showing every other use case that affects the same metric.
Financial Metrics Impacted
Where applicable, the dollar-denominated outcomes — cost reduction, revenue impact, working capital, etc.
Who Is Involved?
Stakeholders organized as a SIPOC quadrant: Suppliers, Process owners, Customers, and Other Stakeholders. This is the input/output context — what flows in, what flows out, who participates.
Stakeholder Groups · Business Functions · Industries · Competitive Advantages
Tag chips that link to filtered browse views. Click any of them to see other use cases sharing that attribute. The cross-cutting navigation we built into the platform shows up here as a row of clickable badges.
The Overview tab is the "is this relevant to me?" tab. Read it first. If the answer is no, you've saved yourself the rest of the page. If the answer is yes, you have the context you need to read the rest with a clear lens.
Tab 2 — Analysis
Sign-in required. The full Analysis tab is available to registered users — free to create an account.
What this tab answers
What's actually broken, and why?
Why Is It Hard Today?
Plain-English description of the current-state pain — what makes this use case difficult to execute well in most plants right now.
Where Value Is Lost — Value Leaks
Specific gaps within the use case where value is being lost. Each value leak is a survey-driven, structured observation: what's not happening, and what the consequence is. These come directly from the maturity assessment surveys (mfg-surveys.com).
Root Causes (6M)
Each value leak is connected to one or more root causes, organized by the 6M categories: Man, Machine, Method, Material, Measurement, Mother Nature (environment). Each cause shows its category and influence score (how strongly it drives the leaks).
The Analysis tab is the diagnostic chain. By the time you finish reading it, you should know what's the symptom (value leaks) and what's the underlying cause (root causes). The metrics those causes ultimately affect are shown one tab earlier, in Overview, so the "why should I care?" framing arrives before the diagnosis.
Tab 3 — Implementation
Pro tier required. The Implementation tab is part of the Pro subscription — this is where the corpus connects causes to specific actionable enablers, which is the highest-value piece of the analysis.
What this tab answers
What do I do about it?
How Can We Do It Better?
Plain-English answer to the implementation question — the high-level approach to fixing what the Analysis tab diagnosed.
Key Enablers
The capabilities that address the root causes. Each enabler shows its category (technology, process, people, organizational, financial, regulatory) and intervention type (Automate, Augment, Standardize, Govern, Train, Sense & Monitor, Integrate, Invest). Influence scores show which causes each enabler addresses most strongly. This is where the analysis becomes actionable.
Key Data Sources
What data feeds the use case, where it comes from, and how it's used. If the implementation depends on connecting an MES to a quality system, this is where you'll see that called out.
The Implementation tab closes the loop. It connects each identified root cause to the specific enablers that address it — so instead of a generic "here's a list of technologies," you get a chain: this cause is addressed by these enablers, with this kind of intervention, drawing on this data.
Tab 4 — Example Scenario
What this tab answers
What does this look like in practice?
Case study narrative
Where present, a worked example or composite scenario showing how the use case plays out in a real or representative plant. Less common than the other tabs (not every use case has one), but valuable when present — it grounds the structured analysis in a story.
When this tab exists, it's often the easiest place to start for someone new to the use case. Read the scenario first, then dip back into Analysis and Implementation for the structural details.
Tab 5 — Q&A
What this tab answers
What are people asking about this?
Discussion thread
Registered users can post questions and answers about the use case — implementation experiences, clarifications, links to relevant solutions or vendors. Curated to keep noise low. Q&A is per-use-case so context stays focused.
Why this structure?
Every use case follows the same shape because every use case is built on the same ontology. The tabs aren't arbitrary groupings — they map directly to the structured network the corpus generation pipeline produces:
- Overview = the contextual identity and the dimensions of impact (what it is, why it matters, what metrics it moves, who cares, where it fits).
- Analysis = value leaks → root causes. The diagnostic chain itself.
- Implementation = enablers → data sources. The treatment half of the chain.
- Example Scenario = the narrative that grounds it.
- Q&A = the live community layer.
That same chain is what the knowledge graph visualizes, what the surveys score, and what the cross-cutting filters surface across the corpus. The use case page is one view of that underlying structure — the most readable view, but not the most explorable. For exploration, follow the View Knowledge Graph button at the top of the page.
How to read efficiently
The fastest path through a use case, if you're short on time:
- Read the Summary in the hero (one paragraph).
- Skim the Why Is It Important? bullets in Overview. If you're not interested, stop here.
- Jump to Where Value Is Lost in Analysis to see the specific gaps.
- Skim Key Enablers in Implementation to see what addresses those gaps.
- Open the Knowledge Graph if you want to see how this use case connects to the rest of the corpus.
Five-minute read, total — and you'll know whether this is something to act on, share with a colleague, or move past.
Access tiers
The page structure is consistent across tiers; entire tabs are gated rather than individual sections:
- Free / public: hero, summary, full Overview tab, Example Scenario tab, and read-only access to the Q&A tab.
- Registered (free signup): everything above, plus the full Analysis tab — value leaks and root causes (the diagnostic chain).
- Pro: everything above, plus the full Implementation tab — enablers with intervention types and influence scores, data sources, full Q&A participation.
Each tab's gating is shown as an upgrade prompt at the top of the tab when you don't have access. The button tells you exactly what tier unlocks it.
The takeaway
The use case page is the readable surface of the platform's ontology. Once the structure is familiar, you can navigate any of the 500+ use cases on the site at the same speed and with the same expectations. That consistency is what makes the corpus searchable, comparable, and ultimately useful — it isn't a list of independently-written articles, it's a structured library where every entry is built the same way.