Document Control - Control of Drawings (Prints)

[bgoers]

Need some advice here. Our company is transitioning to be ISO-9001:2008 certified. We have never had any kind of QMS certification before. The culture here is VERY old.

Currently, drawings are distributed by 3 different departments: Customer jobs (Engineering), Stock Runs (Inventory Control) and parts orders (Parts/Service). I find this disturbing due to the fact that there is a huge risk of the integrity of the data being compromised.

I have given direction to revert to the original method of drawing disribution through the Engineering department. Also, I have organized the drawings by part number and customer name. The old method was to put them in a folder by letter. For example, Mfg. Corp would be stored in a folder marked 'M' along with every other job whose customer name began with 'M'.

My question is, has anyone else seen or experienced part and/or assembly drawings being controlled and distributed in three different areas? If so, how is it handled at your company?

The employees here are more concerned with 'getting it done faster' than getting it done right, and of course, any change is a bad one right now due to the very old, embedded culture.

 

[howste]

My question is, has anyone else seen or experienced part and/or assembly drawings being controlled and distributed in three different areas? If so, how is it handled at your company?

I've seen companies distributing documents from multiple areas before, as long as each controls and distributes their own documents. I believe it's a very bad idea to have too multiple areas all trying to control the same documents.

Are there actually are several areas controlling them? Or are several areas just distributing them? If there is central control, then it may be okay to have several areas pulling from this control point to distribute them.

 

[somashekar]

Currently, drawings are distributed by 3 different departments: Customer jobs (Engineering), Stock Runs (Inventory Control) and parts orders (Parts/Service). I find this disturbing due to the fact that there is a huge risk of the integrity of the data being compromised.

Drawings are meant to be used for various purposes. The question is who issues the drawing to the 3 ? Is it the engineering...
Then the control is with the engineering. When a change in drawing is made and approved for issue, the engineering simply withdraws the earlier version and issues the new current version. This is also followed with a notice of how and when the change has to be implemented. The other departments simply follows the notice and uses the new version.