Controlling Documents and Records in a Custom Weld/Fabrication Company

[Fender1]

I’m currently helping my employer develop operations to meet 9001:2008, and for various reason including new-potential business. We are a custom weld/fabrication company of 50+ employees. My current task is to document-develop Control of Documents and Records. Currently we only utilze a couple of low level instructions and no documented processes or procedures. We currently apply little control to documents/records.

Products are manufactured using a traveler having customer and product information, product drawing(s) and a sheet attached to record manufacturing hours. Most, not all, travelers get back to office and filed with p.o. Yes, we have MANY self inflicted problems to work through weekly, thus we are revamping our operations to meet above mentioned standards. Ownership has been very supportive of planned changes .

Now to the purpose of my post. I'm hoping that a few of you could donate a few minutes toward reviewing the attached and comment whether or not the information within the attach, if applied, would satisfy related requirements of above standard. Attached includes a couple of elements not required (suggested by one of our customers,) that I may move to a lower level document. I think they have value. I'm also hoping that our upcoming electronic document management will replace elements in red text. We have many other work instruction and procedures documented and ready to implement once attached or similar is implemented.

Your donation / comments will be appreciated.

 

[Stijloor]

A Quick Bump!

Can someone help?

Thank you very much!!

Stijloor.

 

[Fender1]

Stijloor, thanks for bump.
I'm new to forums and still learning proper etiquette. I now believe most associated with the Cove are too busy to reply to my lengthy post/request. Can you delete my post?

 

[AndyN]

I took a quick look at it and it appears to address the requirements of the standard, but, frankly, for a 50 person shop, I believe it's too complex for that task. It may pass an audit, but it will, IMHO, become a monster to feed.

 

[Fender1]

AndyN,
Thanks for the quick look and comment.
I have a bad habit of overdoing /overthinking things. Can you briefly tell me where I’m going too far?

 

[Jen Kirley]

First, please allow me to express my regret for not noticing and responding to your question over the weekend. We try to give quick response but over weekends and holidays activity in the Cove slows down. Like I said however, I was here so I have little excuse.

Second, for complexity. When I reviewed your process document I wondered what industry you do your work for. Levels of detail will differ according to the industry and its regulations, or lack of them, or needs imposed by customers.

It occurred to me that your writeup is intended to design a nice, tight process but I wonder if its users will find it too complicated. Did you involve them in the decisions about how things were to be done? I've found that closer involvement of users tends to improve conformance once the new process is deployed.

If you aren't sure, why not try it out? Try referring to your new procedure while drafting, routing, approving, installing, distributing, then updating/changing with the change process's tracking, retrieval and disposal activities. When the process is done, ask yourself: Was the process easy to use? Now ask other people to try it and have them report back to you: do they find the drafting, routing, approving, installing, distributing, then updating/changing with the change process's tracking, retrieval and disposal activities easy to perform? Can the process be completed quickly?

I hope this helps! I'm afraid there's no reliable way for me to tell you what your procedure should look like. Some organizations use flow charts, some use Wiki-type process documents online, there are many possibilities in between.

 

[AndyN]

AndyN,
Thanks for the quick look and comment.
I have a bad habit of overdoing /overthinking things. Can you briefly tell me where I’m going too far?

You are welcome - don't give up on us here if we aren't all over your request like 'white on rice'... Document control isn't the 'sexiest' of the requirements and many of us get asked to do the same stuff over and again, so we have to go get some courage up to answer! (joke!)

The biggest 'overload' is in document numbering. It's really not needed. K.I.S.S is best.

 

[ssz102]

what are you want to get common from this?

i have just rough to see the attached you send

i think that the content is fully and you also think thoughful incuding manage for external documents, issuing and controlling ,abolishing for documents,

so, now, you need to modify them associated with inner actually running

 

[Fender1]

AndyN, I appreciate PM offer. I’ll try to contact you later this afternoon or tomorrow. Regarding document numbering overload, I did as stated due to suggestion from one of our customers. Our design manager suggested something similar. The customer suggestion made more sense to me and our team.
If you are referring to element numbering, I originally did so to help discussion of document development and planned to reduce numbering significantly prior to issuing, however ownership stated they like as is.

ssz102, thank you for your comments. I’m not clear on the message.

Ms. Kirley,
Please know that I’m not cross at all. I’m overwhelmed at the resourced offered by all at the Cove. I hope to some day be helpful to someone also.
Regarding involvement by others here, I have been trying to get willful/interested participation from department managers (7-total) for the past 3-4 months. After doing/studying gap analysis I asked the managers to document their department activities-duties. I got nothing. We interviewed them to collection activities/duties and found little firm structure. I drafted the attachment and asked them to review and within 1 wk advise changes/questions/concerns. I received nothing that wk. Ownership suggested that we give managers another wk. Still nothing. So I scheduled a meeting with all managers and ownership. Ownership opened meeting by explaining why we are changing our operations and explained that all need to assist. I then asked managers to voice their changes/questions/concerns with what I attached in opening post, and got nothing. I then breezed through each section, giving department scenarios. The only comment was at end of meeting and from our design manager who stated; ISO requirements are going to slow us down. I then commented that meeting the ISO requirements will improve production flow and help us be more efficient (we currently have a number of production issues weekly and typically due to lack established planning-responsibilities-follow through.)

Ownership is very supportive of development to date and tells me that they will give those having little interest some time to come around, and if later they don’t want to play, ownership will find managers who do want to play. Ownership want me to move forward/implement attachment, however I’d like to know I’m moving in the right direction and without overkill. As AndyN has stated, I want to keep it simple...

 

[AndyN]

Fender1 - you are welcome!

It seems that you have a bit more on your hands than document control. I wouldn't have given it to them for review, since they - the management team - aren't at all excited by that stuff. In such a small company, it's likely you'll be the process owner. As long as it doesn't stop them from doing the right things, you may be better off keeping control of that one!

You may need to go back to some basics with this crowd. They clearly don't understand! I'd bet that the Engineering manager has all the evidence of his process being poor, right under his nose, but he's not seeing it.

I'm guessing you're still implementing the system - towards ISO certification? If so, you may need to round the wagons once more and provide some leadership as to what has to be done etc. Any manager who is stalling off doesn't get it!