QMS Overhaul - Reorganizing and Renaming Documents - Internal References

#11
Interesting. Like someone said earlier, naming conventions need to work for your company and it looks like all these examples do.

RIght now I'm in the process of rewording our procedure that deals with documents to match our new practices. I feel that these things need to be done in a certain order to come out successful on the other side. And this
Without referencing, expect dead roots.
is gold, totally agree. I'm going to start manually going through all the documents and changing the old document references that did exist to the new corresponding document name.

Maybe this post needs some more structure:

1.Create spreadsheet to track old document, name and "code" and how it correlates to new name and "code"
2. Revise "Procedure" that deals with documentation to reflect new practices (in process)
3. Decide whether revisions will continue or start over (should probably add this to the document PR with a statement "from this day..."
4. Physically change documents with new names, formatting, etc.
5. Backup all original docs (Actually that was the first thing I did, everything I'm working with is a copy)
6. Upload new everything to our system

Sound about right? Am I missing anything or would you guys do it differently? As for the rest of management, they should be fine with the cheatsheet from step 1 so I won't have to hear, "Where's this document?" 50 times a day...
 
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Randy

Super Moderator
#12
Be careful because you're picking a potentially really bad cup of Hemlock here. You're #1....#1 priority will be that of control, awareness, accessibility and everything else that can go wrong.

I just went through this with a client just this audit year (QMS multi-site certification). Previously they had documentation down picture perfect (including document access to every location from any other location) and then they decided to fix it. Cutting to the chase, after the "fun" we had this year, they're going back to the original method.

You have totally got to maintain every aspect of control.
 

Johnnymo62

Haste Makes Waste
#13
We use 4 different codes depending on the type of information is contained in the document. I.E. QMSD-1001 is our quality manual. The "D" stands for documents. We use QMSF- for Forms. QMSP- for procedures. QMSM- for process maps. This system works very well for us, as it is easier to search by the type of document, rather than by department or clause.
We use 4 different codes depending on the type of information is contained in the document. I.E. QMSD-1001 is our quality manual. The "D" stands for documents. We use QMSF- for Forms. QMSP- for procedures. QMSM- for process maps. This system works very well for us, as it is easier to search by the type of document, rather than by department or clause.
Ted Rocks!
 

Richard Regalado

Trusted Information Resource
#14
I use a 5-level in my documentation tiering. Here are my classification levels:

L1 - policy documents may include policy statements, information security policies manual,
L2 - anything procedural i.e., documented procedures, WIs, etc.
L3 - standalone documents guidelines, risk registers, business impact analysis worksheets, approved external providers list, etc.
L4 - templates or forms
L5 - records
 

Jen Kirley

Quality and Auditing Expert
Staff member
Admin
#15
Coming back to the original question of a mass change:

The advice to "do as suits you" is fine. The standard is asking for your documents to be accessible, retrievable, preserved etc. How you do that is up to you. Very often organizations write document control procedures that are so constrictive that they think they need to do 300 formal engineering change notices for just a different logo in the header. We have discussed this sort of thing in the Cove before.

If you have a document control procedure that does not allow for a simple "administrative change" that is the first update I would make. In an administrative change, the revision block gets a note of what changed when, and who did it. If there are no changes to instructions for work, acceptance criteria or other critical details, there is just no need for a round of signoffs.

My heart goes out to the people who must go into all those documents and make updates to references buried in the text. It might make it easier to do a search-and-replace, but if it's possible to say what the user needs to know in a simpler way and make a reference table in the first page, maybe that would help. I can't see your documents so it's hard to know.

To summarize, just don't make it harder than it needs to be.
 

rogerpenna

Involved In Discussions
#16
A question... why are CODES used??

I suppose usually codes match TYPE of document.

So for example... CP-0001, QMSP-0001 for Procedures, QMSM for process maps (using codes listed above as examples, our company codes are in portuguese)

Why not having just the name of the document and the full name of the TYPE of document? Why a number for it?


The reason I am specifically asking, is because we had a DMS and we are creating a new system for our company, customized, which will include Document Management, some other QMS systems, as well as stuff directly related to our business (Client Contract Management, Bidding, Engineering, etc)


Then the programmer created an Alpha version of the Doc system. When setting a type of document, we give it a code, alongside metadata, approval list, etc.

But that code is not showing in the list of documents.

It only shows the particular document name, type of document (let's say, Procedure).
I questioned him. He said he only included code in the configuration of type of document because we asked, but he used it for nothing.

I want to give him a nice answer why document codes are important. But I could not think of anything lol. Specially because we can already see the type of document, by full naming.

Maybe they are not so important after all?
 

rogerpenna

Involved In Discussions
#17
I use a 5-level in my documentation tiering. Here are my classification levels:

L1 - policy documents may include policy statements, information security policies manual,
L2 - anything procedural i.e., documented procedures, WIs, etc.
L3 - standalone documents guidelines, risk registers, business impact analysis worksheets, approved external providers list, etc.
L4 - templates or forms
L5 - records
what's the use of tiering the documents? And do you use it in the code?
 

greatwhitebuffalo

Starting to get Involved
#18
"A question... why are CODES used??

I suppose usually codes match TYPE of document.

So for example... CP-0001, QMSP-0001 for Procedures, QMSM for process maps (using codes listed above as examples, our company codes are in portuguese)

Why not having just the name of the document and the full name of the TYPE of document? Why a number for it?"

I suppose you don't need one, if that suits your system. Off the top of my head I like the codes for when I reference the document in other places (i.e. control plan / pfmea / quality manual) With the code system I simply reference the associated document number and the user is certain to look in the right place, there is no chance of documents getting duplicated as I simply would 'retire' the obsolete document (and code) and change all references to it.
 

rogerpenna

Involved In Discussions
#19
Ok, that is a good reason I had forgotten about. I will give it. Out of the top of my head, it's specially good to have codes in training matrixes, etc, where you can´t write the whole title...

Also, even in text documents, if you use the code, it may tell you stuff about the document (like if it's a procedure, department it belongs to, etc)
 
#20
Coming back to the original question of a mass change:

The advice to "do as suits you" is fine. The standard is asking for your documents to be accessible, retrievable, preserved etc. How you do that is up to you. Very often organizations write document control procedures that are so constrictive that they think they need to do 300 formal engineering change notices for just a different logo in the header. We have discussed this sort of thing in the Cove before.

If you have a document control procedure that does not allow for a simple "administrative change" that is the first update I would make. In an administrative change, the revision block gets a note of what changed when, and who did it. If there are no changes to instructions for work, acceptance criteria or other critical details, there is just no need for a round of signoffs.

My heart goes out to the people who must go into all those documents and make updates to references buried in the text. It might make it easier to do a search-and-replace, but if it's possible to say what the user needs to know in a simpler way and make a reference table in the first page, maybe that would help. I can't see your documents so it's hard to know.

To summarize, just don't make it harder than it needs to be.
 
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