Electronic Document Control - Posting a process at work station

[tfederspiel]

I am new to this company and our requirements for document control is that the on-line version is the latest, and should only be used.

I have found 1 page work instruction (typically has a picture of the product) posted in at a bunch work stations. In two instances they the postings were at the wrong work stations as the lines had been changed. Thoughts?

 

[RoxaneB]

Congrats on making your first post! It looks like you've been a member here for a while...long time Cove member, first time poster!

I am new to this company and our requirements for document control is that the on-line version is the latest, and should only be used.

I have found 1 page work instruction (typically has a picture of the product) posted in at a bunch work stations. In two instances they the postings were at the wrong work stations as the lines had been changed. Thoughts?

There are several ways to approach this and I'm sure Cove members will be diving into this thread with multiple options for you to consider. For now, however, here is some food for thought...

1. Is the 'online only' option practical? | Let's face it, the reality of some processes requires visual cues to help ensure the process goes smoothly. It's all well and good to say that you're online only, but if your processes require handy hints nearby, that policy needs to be re-evaluated.
2. Can a list of locations where controlled hard copies are located be utilized? | If it is determined that controlled hard copies are needed, the document control procedure needs to be updated and having a list of what is where should be developed. This list of controlled hard copies will assist the team in knowing where revised documents need to be posted (and obsolete versions removed).
3. Are these job aids instead of work instructions? | I worked for a company where we had job aids...pictures related to the process but they weren't really work instructions. Usually, it was stuff like "good product versus bad product" or "Make sure switch is always in the on position" (and there'd be a picture of the switch in the on position). Job aids, we found, were typically triggered from a previous failure...see the next bullet.
4. If these are job aids, can a database be created to control them? | We controlled our job aids for a few reasons. We wanted to know what information was where but because failures were typically the reason an aid would be created and posted, we also kept track of how many times the aid had to be recommunicated. After a certain number of refreshers, the aid was determined to be a critical aspect of the process and it was factored into the work instruction (and formal training provided instead of adhoc on-the-job training).

I would highly recommend that you talk with the people at the work stations and find out who created the postings and why. The reasons provided could speak volumes about the quality of the existign documents and the practicality of the 'online only' decision.

 

[tfederspiel]

I am leaning towards calling these "job aides" - they seem to be on document control hyper-drive here and we may be putting undo requirements on ourselves.

 

[dave-o]

I'd agree with calling them job aides as long as they aren't exact printed versions of the work instructions.

 

[kgott]

I am new to this company and our requirements for document control is that the on-line version is the latest, and should only be used.

I have found 1 page work instruction (typically has a picture of the product) posted in at a bunch work stations. In two instances they the postings were at the wrong work stations as the lines had been changed. Thoughts?

It may be that there is a lack of communication or coordination at the shop floor supervision level when things get moved around but the paper work fails to move with it.

I once worked for a company that made transportable accommodation units and I had that problem so I talked to the yard manager and it was simply something he had overlooked.

One thing that came out of my discussion with him was that most of the blokes that did the building work had all the dimensions and materials etc in their head as they had been doing it for so long.

I was happy that any new person was supervised by an experienced mate to make sure mistakes were not made. After a while we canned the idea of putting drawings out in the yard all together unless it was a one off or short run job which worked well because the yard manage would let me know when that was the case.