As we have seen, the document base can be used to harmonize the documentation activities in the engineering process. But there is more! The document base can serve as a glue layer for documentation activities as well as for other important tasks:
 
The standardized data format then enables us to generate the required views by using standard tools regardless what the original format was. The presentation view can even be generated if the engineering tool is not actually available. If the requirements of the presentation view are changing, additional views can be defined to meet them.
 
The standard data format can even be used to overcome peer to peer data formats which tend to be very specific to tools and tasks. Thus the document base not only bridges the gap between engineering tools and document presentations but also existing gaps in the engineering base itself.
 
The document base can be used for long term archiving. This protects the investment in information which remains accessible when engineering tools disappear. As we all know, the life of our data is several times longer than the availability of our tools.
 
The document base can be used to integrate results of different engineering groups even if there are different tools in use. This can be utilized across companies. The MSR 5. The document base in the MSR consortium consortium follows this approach (see ).