Firnament · example collection
Six Firnkerns, one overview — and three findings,
that appear in no single dossier.
Hasler Präzision AG, Sissach BL · contract manufacturing and subassembly assembly, 140 employees, exports to 14 countries. First Firnkern in February 2026, four accepted since then, two in progress. As at: –. All people, figures and incidents are invented.
01 · Role map
Who stands where in the house — and how far secured
Each tile is a Firnkern: one role, one person, one occasion, one status. The coverage counts the signed-off task sheets against the task areas defined in the analysis — not against a feeling of completeness. Four of the six cores you can open in full; they are the same ones that are in the sample Firnkern.
How to read the coverage: 96 % does not mean that 4 % is missing and nobody knows which part. It means that two named points are open and that both are in the acceptance record with a reason and a date. Coverage of 100 % occurs with us only for roles that have no rare procedures attached — and those are rare.
02 · Shared search
One question, all six cores —
In a single dossier you search when you know whose task it was. In the Firnament you search when you do not know that — and that is the more frequent case. Try it:
The search runs across the tasks, problem cases, documents, videos, deadlines, contacts and in-house terms of all the cores. A hit opens the corresponding Firnkern. What it cannot do and is not meant to do: search your raw recordings or personnel files — the Firnament holds signed-off content only.
03 · Risk overview
The same assessment as in the analysis — only now with the result beside it
Replaceability, extent of damage and time frame, each rated 1 to 3 and multiplied. The score is not a science but an order of precedence: it answers the only question that counts at the start — where do we begin. After every accepted Firnkern the list is reassessed, because secured knowledge lowers the extent of damage.
What this table set off in the company: The production planning and costing role was not on the list in the first analysis — it was added during the walk-round, because the question 'who decides which order goes on which machine' produced the same name three times. With no change of post pending, no resignation, no retirement. It is today the only role that is recorded purely as a precaution.
04 · Deputy matrix
The finding that makes the merging worthwhile
Each row is a person who could step in in an emergency. Each column is a key role. In the individual dossiers the deputy appears as a reassuring sentence — laid side by side it becomes clear that three of the six roles have no technical deputy at all and that nobody in the house covers more than one role completely.
Three roles without a technical deputy
What follows from this — and what does not. A dossier does not replace a second person. It ensures that the second person, when there is one some day, is able to work in weeks rather than months — and that in the meantime someone can do with instructions what would otherwise be left undone. The real measure here is still: build up a technical deputy for export. That is what the final report says as well, even though it is not a job for us.
05 · Shared annual cycle
All deadlines of all roles in one year
Every Firnkern has its own annual cycle. Laid on top of one another they show in which months dates with legal consequences accumulate and which month depends on too few people. The symbol § marks a deadline with legal consequences. Months with three or more of them are coloured red.
What the company made of it
January was eased: the foreign trade statistics have been moved to the second half of January, the tool stocktake to February. Two dates fewer in the tightest week of the year — a measure that costs nothing and that nobody would have noticed without this overview.
What is still open
– Dates with legal consequences in the year depend on roles without a technical deputy. Some of them can be bridged with written instructions and a contact at the forwarder. For the social insurance returns and the customs year-end there is no solution without a second trained person — that is not a task for a dossier but for personnel planning.
How the cycle stays current
Every deadline belongs to a task sheet in a Firnkern. If it is changed there, the shared cycle changes with it. There is no second list that someone would have to keep up to date — that is the only reason why an overview like this is still correct after two years.
06 · Open gaps
– named gaps — and why we leave them standing
Every acceptance record ends with a gap list. Merging them is uncomfortable and worthwhile for exactly that reason: it is the only place in the whole Firnament that states what is not secured. A collection without such a list is not more complete, only less honest.
Open — with reason and date
Closed since acceptance
The pattern that only becomes visible when they are seen together: Almost all open points concern procedures that occur once a year or less often — the customs year-end, the audit, the recall. They have not been forgotten; during the recording period they simply could not be observed. That is why each one states the next date on which it occurs: it is then added as an addendum, by the person who does it at that time. That is the difference between a gap and a hole.
07 · Maintenance cockpit
Who keeps which core up to date — and since when they have not
The question on which knowledge projects founder. A dossier without a named owner is not empty after eighteen months but wrong — and wrong is worse than empty. This table makes visible where that is happening right now.
One core without an owner
For order processing and export no permanently maintaining person is named — the post is vacant, and the head of sales is holding the dossier only in the interim. It is the only point in this collection that we mark as a real risk, and it will not be resolved until the post is filled. Until then it stands here so that nobody overlooks it.
Five open notifications have been sitting there since acceptance: three addenda from the gap list, two queries from the deputy that cannot be answered without a specialist.
The rule in the house, set down in the maintenance rules of every core: Whoever does the work maintains their own dossier. Not quality management, not the HR department — otherwise someone is writing about something they do not do. Effort in our experience: two to four hours per role per year, if ongoing changes are entered straight away instead of accumulating for an annual exercise.
08 · What it costs
Modular instead of a fixed price — and not by role complexity
A fixed price would be too expensive with three cores and too cheap with twelve. The effort has exactly two drivers: the one-off setup, which is the same with five cores as with twelve, and the number of cores that go into it. What expressly plays no role here any more is the complexity of the individual role — that was paid for in the Firnkern. Whether a role has 18 or 40 entries changes twenty minutes in the merging. Making a price band out of it would sound precise and would be charged twice.
| Item | Amount | For what exactly | In this example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic setup, one-off | CHF 5'900 | Structure, search, role map, deputy matrix, shared annual cycle, maintenance cockpit, filing in your environment, a 90-minute introduction for the people responsible. Not charged from the fifth Firnkern on — only payable if you want the overview as early as the third or fourth. | not charged |
| Per Firnkern from our hand | CHF 600 | Indexing entries, transferring deadlines into the shared cycle, taking over the gap list, working out a row in the deputy matrix, creating an entry in the maintenance cockpit. | 6 × 600 |
| Per external documentation package | CHF 1'900 | A handover folder, job description or QM collection that does not come from us: read it, structure it, check it for validity, make it searchable. The real complexity driver — around three times one of our own cores. | none |
| Integration of document control | CHF 1'400 | Number ranges, approval levels, validity periods and distribution lists of an existing QM system. | not charged |
| Per additional language | CHF 1'200 | Bilingual interface and search across both language versions. | not charged |
| Per additional site | CHF 800 | A separate view per site with its own annual cycle and its own deputy matrix. | not charged |
| Per core added later | CHF 350 | When a further Firnkern is added after the setup. Included in the annual check as soon as at least three cores are in it. | from the 7th |
| Total for this collection | CHF 3'600 | Six Firnkerns, one site, one language, no external documents. The basic setup of CHF 5'900 has not been charged because more than four cores come from our hand. For comparison: the six cores themselves cost around CHF 96'000 in total. | 6 × 600 |
Why not by role complexity
Because it is not the cost driver here. A very broad role has more entries than a clearly delimited one — but the indexing takes twenty minutes longer, not a day. Building a price band out of that would be a figure that looks precise and measures nothing. And it would be charged twice: the complexity is already in the price of the Firnkern.
What really does take effort instead
External documents. A Firnkern from our hand is structured and can be taken over mechanically. A handover folder that has grown since 2018 has to be read, structured and checked for validity — and in doing so it regularly turns out that half of it is no longer correct. That is the factor of three in the table, and it is honestly earned.
What is added each year
Nothing, if you maintain it yourselves. The overview arises out of the cores — if a deadline changes there, the shared cycle changes with it. If you book the annual check: CHF 890 per Firnkern, from five cores CHF 690. The check of the Firnament itself is included as soon as at least three cores are in the check. Cancellable at any year end.
Why the basic setup is not charged from the fifth core on
Not as a discount campaign. Rather because only from the fifth core does it become visible what a company has actually bought: not five dossiers, but an answer to the question of where the house is exposed. That very answer is in the deputy matrix two sections further up — and selling it separately would be odd. Anyone who has secured five roles with us has earned it.
We still charge for the integration of each core. That is deliberate: what costs nothing gets no owner and is not maintained. An amount that somebody has to sign off makes sure that somebody looks at it.
09 · For context
What a Firnament is — and what it expressly is not
What it is
- An overview page over dossiers that you have anyway
- A single file in your filing system, next to the Firnkerns
- Runs offline, including on a tablet on the shop floor
- Generated from the cores: no second data store, no double maintenance
- Extendable — every new Firnkern appears here as soon as it has been accepted
What it is not
- No platform, no login, no subscription — there is nothing to cancel
- Not software that your IT department has to run, update or secure
- Not a place for personnel data, appraisals or raw recordings
- No replacement for the dossiers: it points to them, it does not contain them
- No precondition — the individual Firnkerns go on working without it