One to three hours a week in the work that flows around it, plus a licence that renews for software nobody has opened this year. A dead layer costs less per week than a live one, but it blocks the path for everything built after it.
Last reviewed 30 September 2026
In the strata, dead. It was rolled out with training, used for a quarter, and quietly replaced by email when a key person left. The forms are still there. So is the integration that half worked. Nobody switched it off because nobody was sure what else would stop.
Usually the process it was bought to fix, still running on email and a shared drive, and the previous attempt at the same thing. Dead layers stack: each tool was bought to reach the same intent and stopped short of it.
Clear the layer before building anything: retire the tool, cancel the licence, export what matters. Then build one process that reaches the core, across the systems that are actually used. A new workflow tool on top of the old one becomes the next dead layer.
The licence and support costs go in a table, never in the column. The column shows only the hours a week spent working around the gap the tool left. Observed first, then the tool's own last-login data as the second source. How EMBR measures. This layer is one part of workaround debt; The Transect measures all of them together.
Tell us what you're working around, and we'll come back to you within two working days.