Paperless Procedures - Does ISO 9001 Require Paper Documents?

[Randy]

You can use clay tablets inscribed in cuniform if you want because you define the platform of documentation, not ISO 9001

 

[JaneB]

You can use clay tablets inscribed in cuniform if you want because you define the platform of documentation, not ISO 9001

Bit heavy to wheel around, though, Randy. You'd need a few wheelbarrows (or slaves).

 

[Foodforthought]

Re: Paperless Procedures

No, the 'challenge' is simply to achieve good control of documents. That's it.

In your organisation you may not want people to print (for example). In others, that may be important and essential and preventing people from printing would hinder their work.

I think you are assuming that your requirements must or should be universal. They shouldn't and aren't.

I understand and agree.
I unintentionally generalized the comment.

 

[Foodforthought]

Re: Paperless Procedures

Further to Jane's good comment, I'd hope you don't succeed too soon in eliminating everyone's ability to edit either. Improvement in documentation obviously requires edits, so if you eliminate edits, you eliminate the possibility of improvement. As Jane suggests, control instead. Given good control, the more folks that can edit, the faster your docs will improve.

We do edit our documentation as well as take suggestions for improvements.

Not every suggestion is a good one.

We control who can edit/print procedures. Procedures are in place for anyone to submit suggestions for improvements. These suggestions for improvement can be towards anything documents, procedures virtually anything. The suggestions are then reviewed and measured before they can be implemented.


To Janes point, that is how we control our documents and improvements.

 

[Foodforthought]

You can use clay tablets inscribed in cuniform if you want because you define the platform of documentation, not ISO 9001

Agreed!
Not too much clay around here but there is plenty of granite!
Time to hit the gymJ

 

[Jim Wynne]

Agreed!
Not too much clay around here but there is plenty of granite!
Time to hit the gymJ

The documentation system should never be taken for granite.

 

[Foodforthought]

The documentation system should never be taken for granite.

nice

 

[Randy]

Agreed!
Not too much clay around here but there is plenty of granite!
Time to hit the gymJ

Good enough, it weathers better than clay

 

[mortby]

We use an electronic system of pdfs and our intranet to make our procedures available throughout the business.

All our people are informed that printed copies are not maintained and they should always check the revision on the online copy to make sure their copy is up to date if they print it. All procedures in the system have a footer that states "Uncontrolled if printed", so that appears on every page of printed copies.

Anyone can ask for the word copy if they wish to update it, but by having to come and ask for it, we can make sure that the people who are functionally responsible for those areas are aware of the change request.

 

[Cari Spears]

We use an electronic system of pdfs and our intranet to make our procedures available throughout the business.

All our people are informed that printed copies are not maintained and they should always check the revision on the online copy to make sure their copy is up to date if they print it. All procedures in the system have a footer that states "Uncontrolled if printed", so that appears on every page of printed copies.

Anyone can ask for the word copy if they wish to update it, but by having to come and ask for it, we can make sure that the people who are functionally responsible for those areas are aware of the change request.

That's exactly what we do - except everyone can print their own. I'm the document administrator - so they give me their marked up copy and I make the changes to the electronic document and make sure the revision history and revision date are updated and archive the obsolete version. (After the revision has been approved by the process owner.)