What the documents look like
Brand after-sales repair work turns on warranty responsibility and physical repair outlets, so the materials handled here go beyond platform refunds into inspection, part replacement, and replacement-or-return approval. The recurring documents are warranty cards, repair work orders, inspection reports, and replacement approvals. They arrive from after-sales systems, store orders, and repair outlet feedback. These materials jointly decide who bears responsibility and cost for one repair order, so parsing and chunking must preserve the cross-references among them.
Materials are generated per order and updated daily. Parsing output needs to point back to the source text and its version. A warranty card states the valid scope, a repair work order states the fault and the handling, an inspection report states a conclusion, and a replacement approval states an approval status. Conditions and conclusions across these four document types cannot be split apart.
Retrieval indexes are stored separately from the underlying records. One group of underlying records can map to more than one index. Retrieval capability does not perform authorization judgment.
Hypothetical paper exercise sample: one work order at a brand after-sales center, number WX-2024-0871, intake date 12 March 2024, model A-100, fault described as mainboard not supplying power. The attached warranty card states "whole-unit warranty 12 months, counted from the invoice issue date"; the purchase invoice date is 20 May 2023. The inspection report conclusion reads "mainboard moisture corrosion, outside warranty scope." A draft sentence reads: "This order falls within the warranty period, and the brand bears the mainboard replacement cost." A pending request reads: "Please confirm whether this order can proceed directly to replacement approval."
Constraints at the document chunking step
The primary task here is comparing contract and transaction materials. The chunking step must keep each condition attached to the content it governs, and must keep each conclusion attached to the material that states it. A warranty card's start date and a work order's intake date are separate fields; merging them changes the comparison result. An inspection report's conclusion and a replacement approval's status are separate facts; treating one as the other changes the comparison result.
Retrieval results are candidate content, not authorization. A retrieved document does not mean the order has been approved. The comparison step needs to distinguish recalled content from approval fields and record which facts the draft sentence relies on and whether those facts appear in the materials.
Chunking quality affects what the comparison can see. If a condition clause is split away from the content it constrains, the comparison may read the conclusion without its condition. If a conclusion sentence is split from its subject, the comparison may attach the conclusion to the wrong object. The checks below compare specific proposed sentences against the supplied source wording and its limitations.
Configuration and implementation checks
| Configuration item | Hypothetical starting point for this exercise | Reason and comparison object |
|---|---|---|
| Search mode | Hybrid retrieval | Work order number and model are exact fields; fault description is natural language, so both need coverage |
| Reference cap | To be determined, measured in tokens | Official control is by tokens; value must be set after comparing with actual length of a single material |
| Minimum relevance | To be determined, a 0-1 value | Takes effect only in semantic retrieval or with result reranking; value must be set after comparing with observed score distribution |
| Question optimization | Off for now | Sample question contains an explicit number; enabling it adds one model call |
| Result reranking | Off for now | Requires a rerank model enabled per settings; sample candidate volume is small |
| Segment review | Manual paragraph-by-paragraph comparison against source | Checks whether condition clauses and conclusion clauses were split into different data chunks |
Three common errors
- Treating the warranty card start date and the intake date as one field. The warranty card states the count starts from the invoice issue date; the intake date is a separate field. During review, compare the invoice date plus the warranty term against the intake date, and observe whether the resulting end date falls before the intake date. In the sample, 20 May 2023 plus 12 months gives 20 May 2024, which is later than the intake date, so the warranty-period claim aligns with the date fields.
- Treating the inspection report conclusion as an approval status. The inspection report states only the nature of the fault; whether replacement approval passed is a different material. During review, look for a status field in the approval material and observe whether a passed record exists. When it is absent, record it as pending verification. In the sample, the approval conclusion is not stated, so this remains an evidence gap.
- Treating a retrieval hit as authorization to proceed. A retrieval result returning related material does not mean the order has been approved. During review, separate recalled content from approval fields, and observe whether the facts the draft sentence relies on have corresponding records in the materials. In the sample, the draft sentence's cost-bearing claim conflicts with the inspection report conclusion on the same subject, same period, and same field.
How to verify the setup
- Input the work order number WX-2024-0871 and model A-100 from the hypothetical sample. Compare whether the recalled content includes the corresponding warranty card and inspection report, and observe whether the returned segments retain the complete condition clauses "counted from the invoice issue date" and "outside warranty scope." If a condition clause is truncated, adjust the segmentation. A retrieval hit alone does not confirm the order's approval status.
- Input the draft sentence "This order falls within the warranty period, and the brand bears the mainboard replacement cost." Compare it against the warranty card date fields and the inspection report conclusion, and observe whether there are mutually exclusive values on the same subject, same period, and same field. The invoice date 20 May 2023 plus 12 months gives 20 May 2024, later than the intake date, so the warranty-period claim aligns with the date fields. The inspection report conclusion is inconsistent with the cost-bearing claim, so the draft sentence is not supported. This is a paper comparison, not a completed test.
- Input the pending request "Please confirm whether this order can proceed directly to replacement approval." Compare whether an approval status field exists in the materials, and observe the value of that field. The sample does not state an approval conclusion, so the request is not supported and the evidence gap must be recorded. A retrieval hit must not be substituted for an approval record. A pending request is not approval, and an offered option is not execution.