H
holly21
Our company has a series of controlled documents that right now, only one person can print. They are viewable on a PC as *.pdf documents. Some people (including me!) want to have the ability to print and use these documents with people in production, who do not have access to PCs, but need the documents to do their work correctly. (I know... why have a controlled document that the appropriate people cannot view?? )
The executive branch of my company does not want to have copies of these documents on the manufacturing floor because they want to know how we can control keeping the most current versions in place. If hard copies exist, anyone can make copies of them so we wouldn't always know how many people had copies of the documents. We do not have a dedicated document control person for this sort of task.
We've discussed various ideas, like having PCs on the operations floor (a kiosk type station), but people would not leave the machines they are operating to go use a PC. Many of them cannot use PCs and many of them cannot read english.
We've also discussed that hard copies had to be printed in color, and if anyone was caught using a black and white document, we know it has been photocopied... however, that still doesn't prevent an untold number of copies floating around and the possibility that someone will be using an out-of-date document.
We used to have a person who's sole responsibility was keeping binders on the floor up to date, however that was scrapped (before I worked here) because having them viewable-only on a PC was considered to be the only way that everyone would be using current versions of the document.
Some managers keep single binders in offices for training purposes, but if someone cannot remember a complex process, they have no way to reference that document again without leaving a machine unattended. No one wants to reflect less productivity than others, even if it means doing the process incorrectly.
How do other companies manage this? Any ideas would be appreciated and I thank whomever has read this entire thing and takes the time to reply.
The executive branch of my company does not want to have copies of these documents on the manufacturing floor because they want to know how we can control keeping the most current versions in place. If hard copies exist, anyone can make copies of them so we wouldn't always know how many people had copies of the documents. We do not have a dedicated document control person for this sort of task.
We've discussed various ideas, like having PCs on the operations floor (a kiosk type station), but people would not leave the machines they are operating to go use a PC. Many of them cannot use PCs and many of them cannot read english.
We've also discussed that hard copies had to be printed in color, and if anyone was caught using a black and white document, we know it has been photocopied... however, that still doesn't prevent an untold number of copies floating around and the possibility that someone will be using an out-of-date document.
We used to have a person who's sole responsibility was keeping binders on the floor up to date, however that was scrapped (before I worked here) because having them viewable-only on a PC was considered to be the only way that everyone would be using current versions of the document.
Some managers keep single binders in offices for training purposes, but if someone cannot remember a complex process, they have no way to reference that document again without leaving a machine unattended. No one wants to reflect less productivity than others, even if it means doing the process incorrectly.
How do other companies manage this? Any ideas would be appreciated and I thank whomever has read this entire thing and takes the time to reply.
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