Technical Documents Numbering System - Manuals, Procedures and Wi's

[Paula JS]

Hi guys
I'd agree with a comment Jane made earlier - why do you need the numbering schema?

Let me give you the scenario:
- Working electronically
- Have both an organisation wide Document Mgmt System and a specific application for engineering projects and document control

Numbering requirement:
The only requirement I can find across all the reading I have done is that controlled documents need a unique identifier. Beyond that it is a business decision.

So given that both my systems can generate unique sequential ID's what are the benefits of having a complex numbering schema such as those many of you have suggested.

Especially given that I also have:
- Document Names
- Advanced Search capability
- Additional metadata tags to cross reference and identify content

Can someone please explain the business benefit of the complex numbering schemes?

Thanks!

 

[SHall]

Using a system with categories as I described above for document identifiers allows easy cross referencing to other requirements:

• Doc Control - Required approvals (by function /level)
• Training requirements - whole categories will never require training
• Document retention times - even electronically, you don't want to keep it all forever

The ability to communicate these ideas clearly across multiple procedures within the quality system is helpful. This could be accomplished with tags, however you'd still need the concept of categories to make it work, and it would be a bit abstract if not encoded in the number, and if it relies on humans to remember to apply the appropriate tag, there will be failures.

I'm on the fence about part numbers for actual things, but that's probably a discussion for a different message board entirely.

Shelley

 

[rogerpenna]

At my company, we divide documents by folder, and each folder is for a type of document (Quality Manual, Procedures, Work Instructions, Job Descriptions, External Documents, Records, Forms, etc).

Each type of document has a different acronym, which forms the 3 first letters of the numbering/coding system.

MGQ (Manual do Sistema de Gestão da Qualidade)
PQP (Procedimento da Qualidade PavCo)
ITP (Instrução de Trabalho PavCo)
DC (Descrição de Cargo)
DE (Documentos Externos)
etc. Above are in portuguese. But you get an idea.

They are all followed by the department they belong too. Some administrative documents are more general in this description.

PQP-SGQ (SGQ: Sistema Gestão Qualidade... QMS in portuguese). So a Quality Procedure.

PQP-ADM

PQP-MAN (Maintenance Department Procedure)