Linda W said:
Our team is proposing that the QA department is at least in the review process of all the "Corporate" or "Global" documents if not the approval process. Could anyone that has worked with or has a Global Document Control System in place give me some "best practice" ideas to take back to the team?
Appreciate your feedback!
Linda
Hi Linda,
I have worked with (been the victim of) a global documentation system. I don't know if I can really be of much help, because the system that we had was a nightmare. I can tell you how ours worked (or didn't work).
I worked for a major aerospace manufacturing company, with many individual business units. One of the sites was primarily responsible for all of the documentation. All other sites would submit new documents or change requests to the primary site, who would then consolidate changes and coordinate with focals from each of the affected sites. (The site focals were almost always QA people). Each site focal would then review the documents to determine what internal organizations or processes were affected and coordinate the document internally. Of course each of the sites would make changes to suit their needs and resubmit the document...which would trigger another coordination cycle from the top down. It wasn't uncommon for documents to remain in this continuous loop for months.
We got a little better at moving documents thru this process, once someone from the primary site discovered conference calls. We would get all focals on the line and try to come to some agreement. One of the main issues that we had, is even though we all worked for the same company, our processes could be completely different...and some much more critical than others. So a procedure that was developed to tightly control a critical process at one site, would be non-value added at another.
Eventually the documents were nearly impossible to follow, because they were so loaded with exemption statements and descriptions of how the process varied for each site.
A couple of years ago, the mother company sold our site and I was tasked with developing our own (AS9100) documentation system. Quite an undertaking...but I was thrilled to be out from under the old system and able to write documents that were meaningful and easily understood.
I guess if you have to go there (Global), I would recommend that you document a "loophole" for the individual sites...maybe allowing them to supersede the Global document (with a management approved addendum or something) for variations on processes.