Moving to Intranet QM (Quality Manual and Documentation) - Recommendations?

[Russ]

Can anyone give me some advice as to how much documentation I should use when moving our QM from hard copy to our Intranet? I am changing the location of it in our procedure for doc. & data control. Since I'm not changing it per se, do I need to document anything else?

I would suggest that you at least address what the official document is. What I mean is, I think you must define that the electronic copy is the valid one, as opposed to a printed copy of the electronic file. Depending on how employees use their documents, this can be a source of problems, since many times we have found folks using a printed copy that is a couple revs behind! Maybe a statement that printed copies are reference docs while the electronic version is teh legitimate one.

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See you down life's highway!

Eric

[Neil]

Just for insurance but a watermark across the electronic version on the intranet with "UNCONTROLLED COPY" or the like. If you really want to get fancy put "Valid For This Date Only followed by the actual date of printing". This ensures that the auditors will not be able to treat the occasional printed off version, which you can not easily control, as an official copy.

[Cheryl]

Our company did the same approximately 8 months ago, what we did is insert a footer that wil print on every page if printed out that reads: Reference copy only. File can be found on: (file and path)

[Marc]

Originally posted by Neil:

If you really want to get fancy put "Valid For This Date Only followed by the actual date of printing". This ensures that the auditors will not be able to treat the occasional printed off version, which you can not easily control, as an official copy.

I'm not sure it's particularly 'fancy', but I have seen this methond and I like it. Thanks for the suggestion!

Yeah, if you can do it, it's the way to go. We have our QSM, procedures, work instructions and all the necessary forms that you may need to use on our intranet. WE have had so for a few years now and everyone loves it, auditors included. We state in our procedures that a printed off copy is a reference copy and is valid only for the date that is printed in the document footer.

[Alf Gulford]

We also use the footer with print date, but to avoid printing out a document late in the day and then having to do the same thing the next morning, ours prints both the date and time and states that the document is good for 24 hours. Just a variation that works well for us.

Alf

[Russ]

Thanks for all the good ideas. Just out of curiousity, how has everyone handled accessability for each department, especially those with 2nd & 3rd shift and no regular Supervisor.