<snip>what procedures do we control via the control copy holders list? Can anyone explain how this works?</snip>
You should control all your QMS documents. If you are using ISO 9001, these are (from section 4.2.1): quality policy, quality objectives, quality manual, procedures and records required by the Standard, and documents determined by the organization to be necessary to ensure the effective planning, operation and control of its processes.
Whether you control these documents through a "control copy holders list" or other means is up to you.
"Control" requires you (from Sec. 4.2.3)
a) to approve documents for adequacy prior to issue,
b) to review and update as necessary and re-approve documents,
c) to ensure that changes and the current revision status of documents are identified,
d) to ensure that relevant versions of applicable documents are available at points of use,
e) to ensure that documents remain legible and readily identifiable,
f) to ensure that documents of external origin determined by the organization to be necessary for the planning and operation of the quality management system are identified and their distribution controlled, and
g) to prevent the unintended use of obsolete documents, and to apply suitable identification to them if they are retained for any purpose.
You may do this by keeping your documents in "controlled binders", and keeping the "controlled copy holders list" that you mention. But a setup like that is hard to maintain, especially if you have more than a dozen documents. Electronic documents in a shared drive are an improvement, but even this setup is practical only if you have a small set of docs.
For a much easier and scalable path look into
wikis. Wikis are a special kind of website that your employees can edit collaboratively. They make
document control almost automatic, are easy to maintain, and are very affordable (some are open source).
Good luck!
Pancho
The problem is, we have a main office having a number of projects run from the office, the clients link in with the main office, however the work is completed offshore, the offshore worksites can not access the main office servers, therefore the guys on the project in the main office have been e-mailing the project and company procedures with no control, therefore how do we know there working off the latest revision, the only way is off the front sheet "issued for use". The only way I can think of controlling the documents is to put in a step for having a control copy holders list, marking the document up in the way for controlled issue, and ensuring this copy is scanned to the people whom need it offshore. Your comments are welcome to help please
