Re: How do you retain obsolete docs?
A large part of any records retention policy is determining what to save, how long to save it, and when to "dispose"of it. ("Dispose" in this instance does NOT mean "destroy" - only what happens next.)
A typical retention policy allows for
- active documents
- inactive, but still valid documents
- superseded or obsolete documents.
Active documents are usually kept handy for ready retrieval and reference.
Inactive documents are kept for reference.
Obsolete or superseded documents fall into two categories:
- those kept for referral (lots of reasons)
- those which have no value to the organization, its customers, or regulators
Those kept for referral are appropriately tagged to prevent accidental use as an active document and archived with limited access for those who have need to refer for "some" reason.
The remaining ones with no current or projected value at the end of the inital retention period are often destroyed. Several companies are in the business of on-site destruction, bringing trucks equipped with powerful shredders to the client's site and destroying documents with an unbroken chain of custody from document to confetti.
In my own company, we had a seven-year basic retention period for most documents covered by our QMS. Some documents might remain in the active category for the entire seven years and when evaluated at the end of that period, given another seven-year retention period.
Some documents, like purchase orders, might be 'once and done' and be active for only a week or two, skipping the "refeence" level and going right into "obsolete" once the invoice had been paid. Those were destroyed without compunction at the seven-year anniversary. Most other documents fell somewhere in between.
Bottom line:
Each organization ought to establish criteria for the categories of their documents in some manner (ours was not the only way to categorize), then evaluate the documents at the end of the initial retention period
- whether to continue to retain,
- where to retain (active or archive), and
- set a new retention period for the next evaluation to determine disposition (disposition whether to class as active, inactive, obsolete, and whether the storage site should be in a different location or if the document should be destroyed.)
The key word here is "evaluate" - almost every document has some unique characteristic which helps the organization determine whether it should be retained or destroyed at the end of each retention period. Some documents may even be subject to much shorter retention periods (why keep a work instruction for a machine no longer owned and used?)