Transfer of a Tool Without Its Supporting Preparation: Why a Colleague Can Have the Tool and Still Not Get the Result

This conceptual paper introduces Transfer of a Tool Without Its Supporting Preparation, a mechanism in which a tool or design reaches a new user without the preparation, configuration, or practical knowledge that supported its earlier results. Using the same tool may therefore produce different outcomes. The paper assesses reproducibility under the recipient’s support conditions. It asks which preparatory steps were omitted and whether adding them changes the result. Failed transfer can have other causes, and written procedures can carry some support. The missing knowledge may be unstated without being inherently inexpressible. The discussion connects the mechanism to Polanyi’s account of tacit knowledge and examines Collins’s 1974 study of TEA laser construction. Collins reported no successful construction from written sources alone among the researchers he interviewed. His account traces success through contact with experienced builders and knowledge of which technical details mattered. Part of the Shared Capacity and Learning series within On Human Modeling, the paper examines the work behind successful tool use and who bears the costs when that work does not travel. Its framework can inform human–AI research on how configuration, preparation, and error recognition affect whether results obtained with a tool can be reproduced by other users.