We have hard copies of articles from 10-20 years ago. How long do we have to keep it before throwing out these articles, letter, etc?

We have hard copies of articles from 10-20 years ago. How long do we have to keep it before throwing out these articles, letter, etc?

What does your document control procedure say?
Are there any regulatory requirements?
The rest is up to you.

Stijloor.

We have hard copies of articles from 10-20 years ago. How long do we have to keep it before throwing out these articles, letter, etc?

Why are you keeping them?

Both Stijloor and Cliff have very valid points. There is a reason you've kept them, is it company policy, regulatory/legal requirements, or just plain lack of planning. Find out why they are there and then look at what is required. Make the two meet. It depends on you, your corp. requirements, and your industry requirements.

I can't say much more than what's already been said; I agree with the above posts. You must consider corporate policy, and industry and regulatory requirements. Depending upon the industry you're involved with, and the type of record, some may have extremely long retention periods, or even lifetime* requirements (nuclear, aerospace, etc.).

Mark

*lifetime of the system/component

Just keep them for as long as they are useful. Articles are published material, therefore they are not records. Thus they are not retained for legal compliance and they do not carry historical value.:)

If you are automotive, TS16949 requires the eventual destruction of records (presumably for liability reasons).

Without specific customer requirements, the ISO 9000 systems I have seen use tax records to set the retention period in ISO systems, destroy records as soon as the tax man lets you.

...how about a humorous answer...if you wait long enough, they turn to dust and the problem solves itself...? :D


Your company has to determine what is appropriate and document it in your Control of records procedure (if you are ISO 9001). Perhaps your company attorney or accounting firm can provide some guidance appropriate for your industry. I think much of what you have probably can begin to be cleaned out, but it depends on your industry and needs.

dear all quality person,

i have a question about controlling and uncontrolling documents. my company recently change our organizational structure and two departments were wipe out from our new organizational structure.

should i revise all my forms, documents and our quality manual?

thank you :confused:

Note: you may have a contractual obligation to inform a customer of your plans to purge documents/records. Check to see if any exist. Some customers like to reserve the right to take control of records pertaining to them/their products and would rather have them on their docks instead of your trash bin.

Kev

akalbulus,

Not sure about the forms and documents, but the QM is probably a given unless you have some reference for the organization in another document.

Kev

dear all quality person,

i have a question about controlling and uncontrolling documents. my company recently change our organizational structure and two departments were wipe out from our new organizational structure.

should i revise all my forms, documents and our quality manual?

thank you :confused:

To the extent that these documents are affected, the answer is yes.

Try to eliminate, as much as possible, references to specific departments or job titles.

To : Kevin Mader & CliffK,

So the conclusion is i have to revise the QM, right?. thank you

To : Kevin Mader & CliffK,

So the conclusion is i have to revise the QM, right?. thank you

If your documentation makes reference to persons, positions or departments that no longer exist, then yes, you need to update it. I would think that there are at least issues of responsibility that need to be accounted for.

To : Kevin Mader & CliffK,

So the conclusion is i have to revise the QM, right?. thank you

No. The conclusion is you have to review your documents to determine if they are affected by the organizational change and then revise if necessary.

Mr. Wynne provided the criteria for change in his post a couple hours ago.

...how about a humorous answer...if you wait long enough, they turn to dust and the problem solves itself...? :D



But Helmut, then you leave yourself open to an audit finding for lack of proper preservation!:lmao:

Geoff Withnell

No. The conclusion is you have to review your documents to determine if they are affected by the organizational change and then revise if necessary.

Mr. Wynne provided the criteria for change in his post a couple hours ago.

i reviewed all the documents and sadly i have to revise all of them. all of them are related documents. :(

i reviewed all the documents and sadly i have to revise all of them. all of them are related documents. :(
I think you might make life a little easier by using more generic terms rather than names of specific departments.

For example, I know of an organization that once had a quality manager, followed by a quality administrator, followed by a quality coordinator and now once again has a quality manager. Same person, essentially the same job function, but different titles.

On the last round of title changes, I suggested they replace them with "manager of the quality function." Likewise, they changed departmental references to "the quality function."

Used judiciously, this kind of wordsmithing can save you some unnecessary work down the road.

I think you might make life a little easier by using more generic terms rather than names of specific departments.

For example, I know of an organization that once had a quality manager, followed by a quality administrator, followed by a quality coordinator and now once again has a quality manager. Same person, essentially the same job function, but different titles.

On the last round of title changes, I suggested they replace them with "manager of the quality function." Likewise, they changed departmental references to "the quality function."

Used judiciously, this kind of wordsmithing can save you some unnecessary work down the road.

my problem right now is there were two department concucted to a one new department. Our R&D and QMS Dept were united and become a new Dept called Business Development Dept.

i still had headache..real bad.... :nope:

What does your document control procedure say?
Are there any regulatory requirements?
The rest is up to you.

Stijloor.

...I totally agree! :agree1:... should be simple as that...