Are all your forms referenced at least once in your procedures?

[Ingeniero1]

Is every one of the forms used in your organization referenced at least once in your procedures?

Do you have any forms that you complete on a regular basis; for example, regulatory, governmental, customer-specials, etc. that are not referenced by any of your procedures?

I ask because after having identified some 30 forms that we use regularly, and having completed about 75% of our procedures, I just realized that we have not referenced a single form yet! I know where many of the forms should be referenced, but there are some that I am not so sure whether they even need to be referenced, such as those that are provided and requested by other organizations, as an example.

Thanks –

Alex

 

[RoxaneB]

Do I reference every form? No...trying to keep up with multitudes of forms, their revisions, ecetera would drive me ....a state, some would say, I've already reached.

I do, however, reference those which are key to the Business Management System and those which are required records by ISO 9001:2000.

One will not my Canadian Expense Report, for example, referenced in any document. It is, however, accessible like any other form via our electronic document control software package.

For forms associatd with Internal Audits, Management Review and product-related issues, well, those can and, IMHO, should be referenced somewhere...be it in the manual, lower level documentation or even a matrix.

 

[db]

Not every area, activity, or process needs a documented procedure. For example, you might use a checklist (form) for management review, even though you don't have a procedure. No problem with that, however what controls do you have to make sure those who need to use the form know when to use it, and where it is located. There really needs to be a trigger mechanism that directs someone to the form. How do you do that? How do folks know that they must use the form, and which form to use? The same questions apply to work instructions when there is no procedure.

 

[The Taz!]

I separate forms into 2 categories, Quality Record forms (Verity of an action being performed), and worksheets. Any form (Standard Format) that becomes a retained quality record is referenced in the procedures. Any work sheet, that may be used to collect information, and then maybe have the information summarized on a Quality Form is not referenced.

 

[Aaron Lupo]

Not every area, activity, or process needs a documented procedure. For example, you might use a checklist (form) for management review, even though you don't have a procedure. No problem with that, however what controls do you have to make sure those who need to use the form know when to use it, and where it is located. There really needs to be a trigger mechanism that directs someone to the form. How do you do that? How do folks know that they must use the form, and which form to use? The same questions apply to work instructions when there is no procedure.

Careful with that advice, if they are talking strictly ISO 9001 that is true, however if you have other regulatory obligations that you must meet say the FDA then you will need a procedure. Otherwise I agree with everything else you are saying.

 

[db]

Careful with that advice, if they are talking strictly ISO 9001 that is true, however if you have other regulatory obligations that you must meet say the FDA then you will need a procedure. Otherwise I agree with everything else you are saying.

Yep, you're right. I was speaking only in the context of ISO 9001:2000. Good Point!