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I'm in the process of writing up our Control of Documents procedure, and I'm puzzling over how detailed we need to be when it comes to approving our documents 4.2.3(a).
We're not a huge company (~50 employees), with four departments.
When a document needs to be updated/changed/created, the manager of a department, with input from his/her subordinates, will come up with a version of what they want the document to look like. The manager then communicates this information to the QMS guy (me). I formalize the change (basically meaning I type it into the computer), and then when I'm done, I show it to the manager (this could be done as an e-mail attachment or by presenting him/her with a printed hard copy of the document - we haven't formalized this part and don't intend to), and then the manager tells me verbally that it looks good (ie that I have made the understood the changes he/she wanted me to make and that I made the changes accordingly - in other words, I think it can be said that they approve of the change - verbally). Once I have this verbal approval, I proceed with the rest of the 'Control of Documents' procedure (archiving the old version of the document, placing the new version in a network share accessible to the employees, updating a document that shows the revision history (including a comment about who approved the current version of the document), etc.
So I guess my question is, is this sufficient (especially the verbal approval part)? I mean, there's no real 'record' that the verbal approval actually occured. All I do is make a note of who approved the change in an excel spreadsheet that lists all of our documents.
Do we need to incorporate some kind of electronic/digital signature document approval procedure as part of our Control of Documents procedure? I'd rather not get into that if I don't have to.
Thanks in advance for your replies, Elsmar Cove community!
FrameReader
We're not a huge company (~50 employees), with four departments.
When a document needs to be updated/changed/created, the manager of a department, with input from his/her subordinates, will come up with a version of what they want the document to look like. The manager then communicates this information to the QMS guy (me). I formalize the change (basically meaning I type it into the computer), and then when I'm done, I show it to the manager (this could be done as an e-mail attachment or by presenting him/her with a printed hard copy of the document - we haven't formalized this part and don't intend to), and then the manager tells me verbally that it looks good (ie that I have made the understood the changes he/she wanted me to make and that I made the changes accordingly - in other words, I think it can be said that they approve of the change - verbally). Once I have this verbal approval, I proceed with the rest of the 'Control of Documents' procedure (archiving the old version of the document, placing the new version in a network share accessible to the employees, updating a document that shows the revision history (including a comment about who approved the current version of the document), etc.
So I guess my question is, is this sufficient (especially the verbal approval part)? I mean, there's no real 'record' that the verbal approval actually occured. All I do is make a note of who approved the change in an excel spreadsheet that lists all of our documents.
Do we need to incorporate some kind of electronic/digital signature document approval procedure as part of our Control of Documents procedure? I'd rather not get into that if I don't have to.
Thanks in advance for your replies, Elsmar Cove community!
FrameReader