You can use an old revision on purpose. That doesn´t seem the question. The problem seems to be using an old revision by ACCIDENT, because you don't know there was a new revision. That seems to be the major objective of having revision numbers on documents and forms, right?
Suppose you have 30 forms already printed. A new form is issued, with more fields for information that now is considered important. But just looking at it you wouldn´t notice the new fields among a multitude of fields.
If you have revision number, you know your 30 printed forms still left are outdated and shouldn´t be used anymore.
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As for paper vs computer systems, suppose the head of a Planning department goes to another company and the next day, other 3 department people, who used to share ride to the office, die in a car crash.
New people are hired. How should they know what procedures apply to their department just by title? There may be several procedures with name planning that have nothing to do with the planning department, as well as Planning department procedures without planning in the name.
Also, just by title, they may end up with a mix of procedures, work instructions, diagrams, etc, when doing a search. Now imagine a mix of different types of documents plus documents that don´t belong to their department as well as docs that do but did not appear in the search.
If you have a code, they go in the computer system and search for the code PLAN. Only documents belong to PLANNING department show. Oh, but they do want PLANNING PROCEDURES only. PR-PLAN in the search box.
Of course, you can also create tons of folders, but it's about the same as using codes and acronyms.
And if you use folders, you cannot move away from folders, like for example, if you want to organize your company by PROJECT and have different documents in each PROJECT FOLDER, but each document in a project folder belonging to different areas/departments working on the project.
ps: sorry for the caps. I should use italics or bold for emphasis, but pressing the shift key with my little fingers it's much faster and easier, so I got used beyond repair to it.
Suppose you have 30 forms already printed. A new form is issued, with more fields for information that now is considered important. But just looking at it you wouldn´t notice the new fields among a multitude of fields.
If you have revision number, you know your 30 printed forms still left are outdated and shouldn´t be used anymore.
------------------------------
As for paper vs computer systems, suppose the head of a Planning department goes to another company and the next day, other 3 department people, who used to share ride to the office, die in a car crash.
New people are hired. How should they know what procedures apply to their department just by title? There may be several procedures with name planning that have nothing to do with the planning department, as well as Planning department procedures without planning in the name.
Also, just by title, they may end up with a mix of procedures, work instructions, diagrams, etc, when doing a search. Now imagine a mix of different types of documents plus documents that don´t belong to their department as well as docs that do but did not appear in the search.
If you have a code, they go in the computer system and search for the code PLAN. Only documents belong to PLANNING department show. Oh, but they do want PLANNING PROCEDURES only. PR-PLAN in the search box.
Of course, you can also create tons of folders, but it's about the same as using codes and acronyms.
And if you use folders, you cannot move away from folders, like for example, if you want to organize your company by PROJECT and have different documents in each PROJECT FOLDER, but each document in a project folder belonging to different areas/departments working on the project.
ps: sorry for the caps. I should use italics or bold for emphasis, but pressing the shift key with my little fingers it's much faster and easier, so I got used beyond repair to it.