Paperless Electronic Records in a Machine Shop

K

kevowatts

#1
Hello all. long time lurker 1st time poster. i have been given the task of looking into going completely paperless. we are a "job shop" machine shop. we have both digital and hardcopies of all our records. I was wondering if since we have all our po's, work instructions, shop floor routers, drawings, invoices, packing slipe, quotes, etc. all digital with password controlled digital signatures on all, etc. do we still need to have hardcopies of all. we sign the papers with pens and digital. we store all in folders and servers. can we get rid of paper/hardcopies? according to iso9001-2008 4.2.4 control of records, it basically states to have them controlled, but not how? i can easily see having a paperless document system, just not sure about records.i hope i make sense lol.
thanks in advance
kevin
 
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Stijloor

Staff member
Super Moderator
#2
Re: Paperless records?

Hello all. long time lurker 1st time poster. i have been given the task of looking into going completely paperless. we are a "job shop" machine shop. we have both digital and hardcopies of all our records. I was wondering if since we have all our po's, work instructions, shop floor routers, drawings, invoices, packing slipe, quotes, etc. all digital with password controlled digital signatures on all, etc. do we still need to have hardcopies of all. we sign the papers with pens and digital. we store all in folders and servers. can we get rid of paper/hardcopies? according to iso9001-2008 4.2.4 control of records, it basically states to have them controlled, but not how? i can easily see having a paperless document system, just not sure about records.i hope i make sense lol.
thanks in advance
kevin
Welcome Kevin! :bigwave::bigwave:

Yes, you can go completely electronic. The standard requires approval, but not necessarily "signatures." You do not have to maintain any hard copies. Keep in mind however that everyone in your organization must have access to the documents and records that affect their process.

Good Luck.

Stijloor.
 

Jen Kirley

Quality and Auditing Expert
Staff member
Admin
#3
Re: Paperless records?

Welcome to the Cove!

Electronic copies are fine, we use scheduled tape and disk backups in a mirrored server newtwork for ours. When auditing, I might even go so far as to ask for back copy of something from this system - 4.2.4 just wants a plan and process for saving, securing, identifying and retrieving docucments are records of whatever nature.
 
S

samsung

#4
Re: Paperless records?

i can easily see having a paperless document system, just not sure about records.i hope i make sense lol.
thanks in advance
All other records in electronic form are OK but viewing A0 & A1 sized drawings on a computer monitor is pretty cumbersome. Unless a print is taken out, it's very difficult to view and understand such drawings.

I personally prefer to have hard copies of large documents in particular.
 
K

kevowatts

#5
Re: Paperless records?

thanks to both of you. we already have an electronic system in place, but we "print" hardcopies of everything and place them in job folders which are stored protected for specified periods. But our electronic system does the same thing, stores, protects, retreives. all documents and records are password protected and all employees have their own password and access to all with controlled permissions for change control. only certain people can access and change certain things. the system is backed up daily by 2 seperate methods. so i think we can get rid of all hardcopies.
Kevin
 
K

kevowatts

#6
Re: Paperless records?

All other records in electronic form are OK but viewing A0 & A1 sized drawings on a computer monitor is pretty cumbersome. Unless a print is taken out, it's very difficult to view and understand such drawings.

I personally prefer to have hard copies of large documents in particular.
I agree that drawings and work instructions are necessary and convienent especially for large drawings. we will still have to have a printout drawing for most of our jobs. i would like to get rid of using our shop floor routers and have another form of reuseable traceability to flow the work. we already keep the material marked traceable.
 

Stijloor

Staff member
Super Moderator
#7
Re: Paperless records?

thanks to both of you. we already have an electronic system in place, but we "print" hardcopies of everything and place them in job folders which are stored protected for specified periods. But our electronic system does the same thing, stores, protects, retreives. all documents and records are password protected and all employees have their own password and access to all with controlled permissions for change control. only certain people can access and change certain things. the system is backed up daily by 2 seperate methods. so i think we can get rid of all hardcopies.
Kevin
Yes!! :applause: :applause:

Hard drives are cheaper than filing cabinets.

Stijloor.
 

bobdoering

Stop X-bar/R Madness!!
Trusted Information Resource
#8
Re: Paperless records?

All other records in electronic form are OK but viewing A0 & A1 sized drawings on a computer monitor is pretty cumbersome. Unless a print is taken out, it's very difficult to view and understand such drawings.
There are some darn nice options now in flat screen monitors. You might want two per machine with a dual monitor card in the networked computer. One to show the numbered print and a second for reviewing work instructions, control plans and entering SPC or inventory data. If they are serious about paperless, they better be committed to having a computer at each machine to keep the data available to the operator. A centralized computer station that the operator has to walk away from with memorized information is not an effective solution.
 

Wes Bucey

Quite Involved in Discussions
#9
Re: Paperless records?

There are some darn nice options now in flat screen monitors. You might want two per machine with a dual monitor card in the networked computer. One to show the numbered print and a second for reviewing work instructions, control plans and entering SPC or inventory data. If they are serious about paperless, they better be committed to having a computer at each machine to keep the data available to the operator. A centralized computer station that the operator has to walk away from with memorized information is not an effective solution.
It isn't so much the cost of cabinets versus hard drives as the cost of real estate to house the cabinets and the cost of clerks to physically maintain the hard copies, retrieve them, and periodically review them for retention/disposition purposes, updating when revisions occur.

"Some" hard copies
I echo the concept that hard copies of large engineering drawings are "convenient," but, even then, provision can be made to except a "working hard copy" from the general "electronic only" rule, provided a process is in place to assure Configuration Management of such hard copies.


Access and permissions to change
The most critical aspect of "electronic only" document management is assuring "fail-safe permission only" changes or deletions of documents.

As Stijloor writes, with the cost of inexpensive desk top and lap top computers dropping every day, it is relatively easy to make the case for cost savings by giving everyone in the organization his/her own computer at a work station and using WIFI systems for network connectivity.

(A large part of the cost savings can be demonstrated by a simple spaghetti diagram showing the time and motion involved in retrieving and transporting and then refiling paper documents at job completion versus a simple click of a menu button at a work station.)

There are many inexpensive electronic document management programs which can provide off-the-shelf software to manage the aspect of need-to-access versus ability-to-change permissions for different users.
 
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