How exactly are you approaching/satisfying this criteria?

I cannot think of a benefit coming out of this. It certainly is going to be very difficult to justify putting stickers on catalogues etc, and as far as customer drawings go, normally they already contain their company name, and what if they dont? Normally an operator only needs to know where the part fits in the assembly, they do not need to know the origin of the drawing.

Can anybody add anything to this.

Regards



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Andy B

Our Auditor dinged us for not controlling "publically obtained" reference books - defining most everything in any book .."external origon" information Machinst manuals - material purchasing cataloges - text books ... training booklets etc..

We made up a master list of what was here for use - (even suggested I "control" a copy of Jurans Quality Handbook unless I specifically stated it was used for reference information only....

I could never "justify" the value added aspect of the exercise

Regards
Jim

My latest attempt at controlling external documents involves linking up to our company's Intranet, where we have electronic versions of several standards, and more coming. In our industry we've got electronic versions of UL standards, with procedures coming, EUSERC, utility specs, and the NEC is in developments.

I am also looking into linking up our documentation with external websites. For example, until we get the electronic NEC we could go to the NFPA website and reference their catalog for the latest version available.

We've had the electronic versions of outside documents for a couple of years, and haven't gotten dinged. But we haven't even addressed the issue of catalogs from distributors, (we don't have design activities at this facility).

AJP

My experience of controlling external documents has been a good one. The main thing is drawing a line in the sand.
Our doc control procedure described how external documents would be controlled, and the master list grew to about 4 pages. (I've included Australian references in here - sorry) It included things like, ISO 9001, Australian Standards on topics like handling customer complaints, noise measurement, safety and performance testing, etc., Approved codes of practice for safety issues, accountancy codes of practice, Legislation (Acts and Regulations) on various aspects that applied to our business.

One particularly interesting group of documents were those that applied to the people supplying the product of the organisation. Each employee used several reference manuals to do their job, the problem was that these were issued by the educating institution when they first did their training, consequently there were lots of different versions. By listing all the holders of each of the documents, and determining the latest edition, and gaining agreement from the educational institution to provide us with update material, we were able to provide all staff with the latest external reference manuals, and then train them to keep them up to date.

This might seem like a lot of work, but we are talking about paramedics. Would you like to be a patient and the paramedics argue over clinical practice as they each learnt from a different book, meanwhile you clutch your chest struggling to breath??????

It was worthwhile it for us, and our customers!!!

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I think that is the heart of the matter; what is important to the successful production of your product or service. In the case of the paramedics, makes lots of sense. In the case of most manufacturing companies, the controlling of external catalogs and reference books seems a bit extreme, unless of course, you refer to them in your procedures.

I have faced a problem of getting wrong/obsolete model ordered by my purchasing staff. The error occured due to the fact that I asked the model no as seen from manufacturer's catalogue, while our library maintained at Purchase dept.(external catalogue)contained the obsolete version. The review process could not detect this anomaly, since description column contains similarity in features.
I feel it is a good idea to segregate what external documents are to be maintained (not controlled)by whom & use as it will be beneficial.

Ak

Tom hit the nail on the head.

If you refer to an external document in your procedures, then it should be a controlled external document.

akshaykm. If you maintain an external document, aren't you in effect attempting to control it? In which case you should be controlling it in a compliant manner.

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I would suggest if you reach a level where you are controlling catalogues, you have gone way, way too far.

Originally posted by Jim Biz:
...even suggested I "control" a copy of Jurans Quality Handbook unless I specifically stated it was used for reference information only.... If your auditor wanted you to control your copy of Juran, I would call him/her an 'idiot auditor'. That's just plain silly.

I would suggest that there are cases where it is important to control catlogues.
In our case, we are the regualtory body for Commercial Boats operating in New South Wales (Australia). Our surveyors investigate the equipment of vessels and make decisions about their suitability to operate commercially. They (each) have many, sometimes upto 100, cataloques of the various items that many be aboard a vessel. One example would be the assessement of the propeller shaft size. The surveyor will record the engine model in the vessel and then from the catalogue they hold determine the power produced. Thi power will then determine the size of shaft required.

For our case it is vital that the catalogues the surveyors use are not only the latest version, but also the appropriate version, and this is an important part of our document control. (Similarly for Standards and Act, Codes, etc)

For our case it is vital that the catalogues the surveyors use are not only the latest version, but also the appropriate version, and this is an important part of our document control.Are we talking about a sales catalogue? If so I suggest yours is a rare case.

Yes, typically these are sales catalogues because it is much easier to get a sales brouchure fram an agent than a technical reference from a supplier.

I think our case might be a special case because of the shear number of different suppliers we need to keep track of (not suppliers to us, but suppliers to our customers, the boat owners) and our lack of control over what is used. Just thinking about it then, it would be nice if we had a system like QS9000, where all suppliers to us could only source from controlled suppliers (tier 3), but then as a government department we get into restriction of trade issues etc.

James G

Our doc control procedure described how external documents would be controlled, and the master list grew to about 4 pages.

Can any one tel me what details the maste list of documents shold contain..??

In particular the attributes that should be recorded..

viz., document name,document received from..

And should this master list kept separately or should it be a part of the main masterlist of document and records..??

Its all about the relavance being created to the business to control the external document or not. The meaning behind the control is we should not land up in using the obsolete stuff. With this quickly scan external documents and classify as controlled and uncontrolled copy. Best way is left the choise to the process owner with clear justification and leave the control authority to them. At last it is our decision how much pain.. we can tolerate...:bonk:

Its all about the relavance being created to the business to control the external document or not. The meaning behind the control is we should not land up in using the obsolete stuff. With this quickly scan external documents and classify as controlled and uncontrolled copy. Best way is left the choise to the process owner with clear justification and leave the control authority to them. At last it is our decision how much pain.. we can tolerate...:bonk:

It doest matter what we do...But it matter How we do.

4.2.3.f says, "to ensure that documents of external origin are identified and their distribution controlled" It's more than identifying their source, it's about making sure that new versions are made available to all who need them. There's little worse than a customer discovering that a revision to a customer-originated drawing or specification has not been communicated to all involved and that the organisation is consequently making non-conforming product.

4.2.3 also says that "A documented procedure shall be established to define the controls needed ..." The word "need" is important. It means the controls that the organisation determines it needs--not what an "idiot auditor" thinks it needs on the basis of a literal, mechanistic reading of the standard. One way to determine "need" is to consider what will happen if distribution of the document of external origin is not controlled. Therein lie the benefits of this requirement. So ...

If we use an out-of-date catalogue, we call a supplier for a product that is no longer available, or costs more than we expect, or doesn't do what we think it does. In many cases, no big deal, supplier will correct us and life moves on. If we're the purchasing department and we make a hundred such calls a day, maybe we ought to control catalogues in order to avoid wasting our time. If an engineer makes design decisions based on an out-of-date catalogue, costly rework might be involved when the error is discovered. If we're a marine regulator, it sounds like it's vital to control catalogues.

If we use an older edition of Juran than is currently available from Borders, how much trouble are we in? Very little, I would imagine, unless our product is critically dependent on material in the latest revisions to the book. Of course, if we work for Mr Juran and we haven't read the latest wisdom from the master ...

If we're doing R&D and the customer has written a technical specification that runs to a hundred pages, revises it, and finds that while fifty of our engineers have the revised version another couple of hundred are working to the old one, the customer will be seriously annoyed, especially if it's a time and materials project and the non-conforming product is being made on the customer's nickel.

If we claim our product conforms to an international technical specification, and that specification changes, and our engineers do not get informed of the change, we could be in breach of contract.

If we use the 1994 edition of ISO 9001 instead of the 2000 version, our colleagues giggle hysterically and ask us which planet we've been on for the last several years.

Hope this helps,
Pat

If we use the 1994 edition of ISO 9001 instead of the 2000 version, our colleagues giggle hysterically and ask us which planet we've been on for the last several years.


I liked this example very much..:lmao::applause:

And the information you provided was so easy to follow..:cool: