# IPE Vision

The Industrial Production Environment, or IPE, is a domain-specific workbench built on Eclipse Theia for industrial bench work.

The first version should excel at being the digital workspace for electronics assembly, firmware flashing, repair, diagnostics, and related bench operations.

## Product definition

The IPE is not a generic IDE with industrial branding.
It is a production workbench that combines:

- the current job context
- procedures and work instructions
- equipment and station records
- evidence capture
- notes and collaboration
- flashing and test workflows
- audit-friendly history

## Primary users

- Bench technician
- Assembly operator
- Repair technician
- Test operator
- Bench lead or supervisor
- Remote expert or reviewer
- System admin or integrator

## Core promise

The IPE should reduce friction at the bench while increasing traceability.

It should help a person answer, at any moment:

- What job is active?
- What station am I using?
- What procedure applies?
- What evidence has been captured?
- What changed?
- Who approved it?
- What happened last time?

## Non-negotiables

- Local-first or resilient operation where practical
- Clear separation between human, automation, and AI actions
- Evidence attached to context, not scattered in separate tools
- Auditability by default
- Open source extensibility
- A real workflow shape, not a dashboard pretending to be a workflow

## Not the goal

- Not a general-purpose IDE
- Not a PLM or ERP replacement
- Not a chat application with a file tree
- Not an AI-first product where the workflow is secondary
- Not a closed appliance