As a verb:
- The act of thinking up (synthesizing) without reference to prior work of the same scope and detail.
- Modifying something without reference to prior work of the same scope and detail.
- The act of documenting Engineering intent in a manner sufficiently concrete that unambiguous manufacturing planning can be accomplished to repeatedly produce interchangeable specimens of the design.
As a noun: a body of documentation traceable through the set of identifying drawings for a Part Number. This is actually a very abstract concept representing all possible as-built configurations throughout the entire region bounded by the tolerances on the drawings, exclusive of configurations created through MRB dispositions (except when the design is retroactively modified to make it look as if we did the disposition on purpose and it would be OK to do it again, which sometimes happens).