A Smart Contract Cannot Approve the Work for You

Automation can recognize that an event occurred. It can move information, trigger a workflow, and prepare a payment. It cannot decide whether the work met an owner's expectation unless people have already defined that rule and someone is responsible for applying it.

In a 2023 Asset Champion Podcast interview with Mike Petrusky, I used a facility service example to explain this boundary. A connected light fixture could report a failure, notify a service provider, and link the activity to payment. The workflow still included a person saying, in effect, "I approve. Someone inspected the issue and addressed it."

That human approval is not a temporary inconvenience. It is part of the operating design.

Code can execute a rule

A smart contract is code that acts when defined conditions are met. The name can make it sound more capable than it is. As I explained in that conversation, it is neither independently smart nor the full legal agreement people may imagine.

The code can check for a recorded event. It can compare a value with a condition. It can release information or payment when the condition is satisfied. These capabilities can reduce a handoff, but only after people decide what the condition means.

If the rule says a service visit occurred, the system can look for evidence of the visit. That is different from deciding that the repair was correct, safe, complete, and acceptable for this facility.

Approval carries judgment and accountability

The approval step identifies the person who owns the exception. They may need to inspect the work, compare it with the service agreement, or ask for additional evidence. They also need authority to reject the transaction when the evidence does not match the condition.

Removing that step does not remove judgment. It hides the judgment inside a sensor, a data source, a threshold, or a rule written earlier. If no one can explain or challenge that rule, automation may make the wrong action faster and harder to interrupt.

A responsible workflow names who can approve, who can reject, and what happens when the inputs disagree.

Automate after the evidence is clear

Before automating a payment or service event, trace one ordinary transaction from the physical work to the final approval. Write down what evidence is produced, who can verify it, what condition releases payment, and how an exception returns to a person.

Some teams will find a stable event that is ready for automation. Others will find that the agreement or evidence is still too ambiguous. Deferring automation in that case is a valid decision.

The goal is not to keep a person clicking every button. It is to keep human responsibility attached to the decisions that require judgment while allowing the system to handle repeatable movement and checks.

A smart contract can carry an approved rule. It cannot decide what the project should approve.

About the source conversation

This article is based on Mike Petrusky's 2023 Asset Champion Podcast interview with Brittanie Campbell-Turner. Listen to the original conversation about blockchain for the built environment and facility management.