We are a manufacturer of machinery with a service team. Our company has multiple sites, which includes service engineering personnel operating from remote locations around the globe. One document the service personnel use is a form under document control located on our intranet. When the form/document is revised a notice is sent out that instructs the user to utilize the current revision. Most personnel operating outside of our headquarters do not always have easy access to our intranet. My fear is that a copy is placed on their laptop local drive, along with previous revisions and the wrong one is used. How do you ensure personnel pull and use the current revision?
Has anyone else encountered this, and if so, any recommendations?
Thank you
It's a difficult situation, but there are some workarounds. A lot depends on how frequently the remote users can have access to the internet (versus your intranet.) What means of communication do you use for such workers for you to contact them or for them to contact HQ? A lot also depends on how frequently you revise such documents.
If they normally access the internet via desk computer, laptop, or mobile device and you have communication with them via internet or phone, you can park the most recent version of such a document in the cloud, password protected, and alert these remote users via the regular communication that such new version is posted and they should replace old versions on their machines with the new version immediately. It is really difficult to expect them to download from the cloud for each time they complete such a form, and with reasonable care and notice, most folks savvy enough to use a computer can be expected to comply with periodic updating of documents along with any other programs or software.
If these remote users are REALLY remote - no communication for weeks at a time, then you have a completely different problem, not just the possibility of using a slightly out-of-date form (the data in the form is probably usable, even if the form, itself, is old, right?)