ISO 14000 - Required Quality Records

Can someone please help? The follwing AR was issued to me this past April. Not all parameters of clause 4.16 are defined in procedures. (e.g. indexing, accessing, filing and maintenance.) I had a spreadsheet, listed all the requirements across the top and answered them the best I could. I am unclear of exactly what they are looking for. When you detail how a record is indexed, such as by part number, date ect. Doesn't that also explain the filing system? If anyone has an example in excel and willing to share it, I would appreciate it. Thanks in advance.

[Roger Eastin]

First off, I think you should ask your registrar (I assumed the auditor was third party) for clarification. It seems to me that your Excel spreadsheet attempts to define each of the requirements of 4.16, so your registrar should be able to clear things up for you. Depending on your retention system, your indexing system could be your filing system as well. For me, indexing is a "subsystem" of our filing system. My filing system allows me to find a general type of record whereas indexing allows me to find individual information.

Catagories that we have included on our Quality Record Table are: Record name, Collection, Access, Filing & Indexing, Storage, Maintenance, Minimum Retention, Disposition, and QS Reference. It may be overkill, but it certainly has caused us to think through the whole process of controlling quality records.

Bill