A test summary that describes a cell model cannot live as a boolean or a file attachment on a product row. It needs its own document record, a recorded claim that links it to the SKU, and a date dimension, because the rule that governs it asks what was true on the day the goods moved. The rest of this article treats that as a data modeling problem rather than a filing cabinet problem.

The summary is a document, not a column

Under 49 CFR 173.185(a)(3), every manufacturer and subsequent distributor of lithium cells or batteries made on or after January 1, 2008 must make a test summary available, with button cells installed in equipment excepted. The summary is a piece of evidence about a tested type. It has its own issuer, its own creation date, its own contents and its own revision history. None of those attributes belong to a product record.

A boolean has_un38_3_summary collapses all of that into one bit and loses the ability to answer when the bit was set, by whom, and against which document.…