https://www.baselinecm.com.au/articles daily 0.75 2026-03-30 https://www.baselinecm.com.au/articles/before-you-paste-that-into-chatgpt monthly 0.5 2026-04-09 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/68f1fae820727059247f3007/1774866502181-GAUXDD9WCCAQPEWKM7ML/unsplash-image-eGGFZ5X2LnA.jpg Articles - Before you Paste that into ChatGPT https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/68f1fae820727059247f3007/81c549b4-87d6-4246-8393-a87a63b89727/The+Data+Flow+Problem.png Articles - Before you Paste that into ChatGPT - Make it stand out Figure 1: The moment program data is submitted to a public AI tool, it leaves the controlled program environment. In defence contexts, this transmission may constitute an unauthorised export under ITAR or Australian export control legislation. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/68f1fae820727059247f3007/1774866584084-YYCWZB5B20N9HEU6VKHJ/unsplash-image-tg7xChYyE08.jpg Articles - Before you Paste that into ChatGPT - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.baselinecm.com.au/articles/the-competent-configuration-manager monthly 0.5 2026-03-30 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/68f1fae820727059247f3007/1774258400881-MOQ7GJQQL1IS0IS29V0S/unsplash-image-AteFNIFVGdo.jpg Articles - The Competent Configuration Manager - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/68f1fae820727059247f3007/1774258527352-7ZNVHAUBG4C0PA052SW7/unsplash-image-ZH_58Z1blrI.jpg Articles - The Competent Configuration Manager - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/68f1fae820727059247f3007/1774258713898-U74IE8S516OJXYS06SCP/unsplash-image-YSvUYqf9Mjk.jpg Articles - The Competent Configuration Manager - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.baselinecm.com.au/articles/the-quiet-configuration-crisis monthly 0.5 2026-03-17 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/68f1fae820727059247f3007/1769939316637-M9DT49GCT43LL0SCCR43/unsplash-image-QBpZGqEMsKg.jpg Articles - The Quiet Configuration Crisis - Why Configuration Management is Uniquely Vulnerable Many leaders assume CM capability can be backfilled quickly. It’s an understandable assumption, but it’s incorrect. Configuration Management is not primarily procedural knowledge, it’s experiential. While policies, standards, and work instructions define what should occur, effective Configuration Management depends on judgement developed through repeated exposure to real delivery conditions. Practitioners learn by navigating imperfect data, contested change decisions, incomplete baselines, audit scrutiny, and the downstream consequences of early configuration mistakes. This experience builds an understanding of risk, timing, and impact that cannot be captured in procedures or tools. As a result, CM capability resides as much in the practitioner’s decision making and intuition as it does in documented process. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/68f1fae820727059247f3007/1769941007211-32ZLNORCWYBW9NUEZWBY/unsplash-image-wD1LRb9OeEo.jpg Articles - The Quiet Configuration Crisis - How Organisations can Begin to Close the Gap A small but growing number of organisations are starting to address this risk by treating Configuration Management as a professional discipline in its own right, rather than as a secondary or transitional skillset. It’s a subtle shift, but an important one. It reframes CM from something that happens incidentally to something that is developed deliberately. More resilient approaches share several common characteristics. First, CM roles are defined explicitly across career stages. Early-career and associate positions are established with clear expectations, boundaries, and development pathways, rather than relying on late-career conversion into CM roles. This creates a visible entry point into the discipline and allows experience to accumulate over time. Second, capability transfer is structured rather than incidental. Junior practitioners are deliberately paired with experienced Configuration Managers, with time and responsibility allocated for mentoring, decision support, and exposure to complex scenarios. Knowledge transfer is treated as part of the role, not as an optional activity squeezed in alongside delivery pressure. Third, organisations place greater emphasis on documenting configuration decision rationale, not just outcomes. Capturing why a decision was made, what alternatives were considered, and what risks were accepted preserves context that would otherwise be lost when individuals move on. Over time, this builds organisational memory rather than individual dependency. Fourth, CM capability is treated as a governance asset rather than an overhead function. Its contribution to delivery confidence, audit readiness, and risk reduction is recognised explicitly, which makes investment in capability development easier to justify and sustain. Finally, Configuration Management development is integrated into broader engineering and delivery capability planning. CM is considered alongside other professional disciplines when planning workforce composition, succession, and long-term program support, rather than being addressed reactively when issues arise. None of these actions require immediate or large-scale workforce expansion. What they require is intent, visibility, and leadership recognition that Configuration Management capability does not sustain itself by default. https://www.baselinecm.com.au/articles/taming-the-digital-toolchain monthly 0.5 2026-03-18 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/68f1fae820727059247f3007/1765181385291-F0THI4RAEMJP0QB1E2R7/unsplash-image-21mJd5NUGZU.jpg Articles - Taming the Digital Toolchain - Why Configuration Management Must Adapt Traditional CM processes assume a single authoritative repository per configuration item. In a digital SoS, this is no longer realistic. Instead, CM must govern relationships, interfaces, and digital handoffs between tools. Here are the areas where CM must take the lead. Defining tool-of-record responsibilities In a fragmented environment, every data element must have a source of truth. For example: The PLM system may be the only authoritative location for part attributes. The MBSE model may be the authoritative source for interface definitions. The procurement system may be the authoritative source for vendor data. CM must define this in policy and enforce it through governance. Governing the digital thread and data lineage CM should ensure: Every configuration item has a controlled identity across all tools Every system receiving data from another system records version identifiers Changes propagate through all downstream systems Interface mappings remain consistent as tools evolve This is the equivalent of “inter-system CM”, and it becomes essential in large defence programs. Supporting multi-tool change management A single change request may touch: Requirements (DOORS) System architecture (Cameo) CAD assemblies (Creo) BOMs (Windchill, SAP) Procurement orders (SAP, IFS) Test cases (Jira, TestRail) CM must: Ensure tools stay aligned Enforce sequencing rules Prevent premature updates Guarantee consistent identifiers This is a major evolution of the traditional change control role. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/68f1fae820727059247f3007/1765182837538-5XI6VENQSTFE846I2PN2/unsplash-image-Q1p7bh3SHj8.jpg Articles - Taming the Digital Toolchain - Approaches to Achieving Interoperability Achieving meaningful interoperability across PLM, MBSE, procurement, and other digital engineering tools requires a deliberate shift toward enterprise-level data coherence. The first step is establishing a clear data architecture that defines how information is structured, identified, and governed across the organisation. This includes consistent naming conventions, authoritative sources of truth for each class of data, and shared metadata frameworks. Without this foundation, no amount of technical integration will produce a stable digital thread. Rather than tightly coupling every tool, many defence organisations instead adopt a federation model. In this approach, each system retains its own internal data structures, but publishes standardised views or interfaces that other tools can consume. This reduces fragility, supports future tool replacement, and avoids the cascading failures common in rigid point-to-point integrations. Increasingly, MBSE plays a central role in this federated landscape by providing a model-based map of relationships, constraints, and dependencies between tools, which CM teams can then govern as part of the broader baseline. In more complex environments, PLM platforms often serve as the integration backbone, managing identities, design artefacts, and the relationships between models, drawings, BOMs, and downstream manufacturing or sustainment data. By positioning PLM as the anchor point of the digital ecosystem, organisations can link ERP, procurement, CAD, MBSE, and logistics environments in a traceable and controlled manner. Complementing this are open standards such as STEP AP242, OSLC, and S1000D, which provide common languages for exchanging information between otherwise incompatible tools. Together, these approaches demonstrate that interoperability is not simply a technical challenge, but a governance challenge. It depends on disciplined CM processes, clear ownership of digital information, and a willingness to treat the digital toolchain itself as a System of Systems that must be baselined, controlled, and continuously aligned across its lifecycle. https://www.baselinecm.com.au/articles/articles/history-of-configuration-management monthly 0.5 2026-03-18 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/68f1fae820727059247f3007/1761643959487-1B613Y22J9U45UKJE0HB/unsplash-image-0LaBRkmH4fM.jpg Articles - The History and Evolution of Configuration Management - The 480-Series During the 1960s and 1970s, the DoD introduced the 480-series standards: MIL-STD-480 (Configuration Control), MIL-STD-481 (Configuration Identification), and MIL-STD-483 (Configuration Management Practices). These were among the first attempts to codify CM as an integrated discipline rather than a collection of ad-hoc processes [1]. These standards made clear that CM was not just about drawings. It was about the relationship between design intent, as documented, and what was actually being built, tested, and fielded. The idea of a baseline became central: a formally approved reference point from which all change was controlled. It may seem procedural, but this concept revolutionised engineering accountability. It created the structure that allowed large systems to evolve safely and traceably. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/68f1fae820727059247f3007/1761643876086-F9AIZWRYWIJK2EV4SRL9/unsplash-image-8qEB0fTe9Vw.jpg Articles - The History and Evolution of Configuration Management - Software Changes Everything While hardware standards matured, the 1970s and 1980s brought a new challenge: software. Software did not degrade like metal or composite materials, but it changed constantly. Version control systems such as SCCS (Source Code Control System, 1972) and RCS (Revision Control System, 1982) were early attempts to apply configuration ideas to code [7]. By the 1990s, ClearCase and PVCS gave large programs enterprise-grade software CM. These tools formalised branching, merging, and baselining in the digital world [9]. When distributed version control systems such as Git (2005) emerged, the concepts of change control and baseline integrity reached everyday software development. What had begun as a Defence necessity became standard engineering practice for global tech companies. This era cemented a truth: CM was no longer just about “things.” It was about data, logic, and relationships. The baseline had become digital. https://www.baselinecm.com.au/articles/why-configuration-management-backbone-defence monthly 0.5 2026-03-18 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/68f1fae820727059247f3007/1760933898065-94TOGD8E4M7B8UP5VVA3/unsplash-image-8mkQRqv1A4E.jpg Articles - Why configuration management is the backbone of modern defence capability - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/68f1fae820727059247f3007/1760942218307-XXUY51XBRWZU55IODGNX/unsplash-image-hpjSkU2UYSU.jpg Articles - Why configuration management is the backbone of modern defence capability - From documents to data The world is shifting from document-based to data-centric engineering, and CM must evolve with it. Where once we managed drawings and specifications, we now manage digital models, software builds, and real-time sensor data. The principles of identification, control, and status accounting still apply - but the scale and speed are far greater than ever before. Modern CM is about data integrity. It’s about ensuring that every digital artefact, from CAD models to simulation outputs, is traceable to a verified requirement and a controlled baseline. In practice, that means integrating CM with Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems, Model-Based Systems Engineering (MSBE) environments, and digital twin platforms. This evolution makes CM more critical than ever before. As projects become more interconnected and automated, the consequences of poor configuration control multiply. A single unverified model or outdated data set can ripple across entire systems, introducing risks that no amount of downstream testing can catch. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/68f1fae820727059247f3007/1760942444737-3VXNJ51KHMJC98YNLWTW/unsplash-image-0tSiofevpUs.jpg Articles - Why configuration management is the backbone of modern defence capability - People, not processes The biggest challenge facing CM today isn’t technology. It’s recognition. Despite its importance, CM often lacks the professional visibility afforded to engineering or project management. Many practitioners learn it on the job, piecing together standards and procedures without formal training or accreditation. That needs to change. Configuration Management deserves to be treated as a profession in its own right - one with defined competencies, education pathways, and leadership roles. Practitioners aren’t simply administrators; they’re the custodians of data integrity and configuration control across the capability lifecycle. As Australia’s Defence industry expands, so too must its CM capability. That means investing in education, building communities of practice, and aligning with international standards such as EIA-649C and ISO 10007. 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