R&D prototype documents need to be controlled?

ISO_Man

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I had a question from someone about when we need to start controlling documents. For example if you're writing a document that has a new idea for a prototype, and you want other team members to be able to view and collaborate on the document, do you put the document in a controlled environment and approve/release it? Or f not, at what point do you release a document and therefore make it controlled?
 

CCaantley

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One part of controlling documents is the prevention of unauthorized changes. If anyone could possibly access and make changes that you don't want to, controlling the document ASAP is needed.
 

Ninja

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view and collaborate on the document

If this also means that the document is still getting tweaked and worked on ... "control" yes...but that may be as simple as track changes...
Publish officially under formal doc mgmt system...likely not.

FWIW...our "control" in the writing of new documents was to have them all on paper. Everyone's handwriting was different enough to know who proposed what.
After we had agreement on what the "official" doc would be, it was put into our formal doc tracking system.
 

Jean_B

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The above holds for quality and consistency. But for patents you might want to start even earlier though the methods might differ. I'm no patent lawyer but there are plenty of books and consultants to get you started.
The library of Congress also has a digital pdf of "writing the laboratory notebook" or similar available which is a general start iirc.
 

Ninja

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FWIW...I've always found patent defense based on records...not cooperative documents. I'm sure it could go multiple ways...
 

JoshuaFroud

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Hi ISO_Man

I would say this depends on what the objective of the document is. The main requirement to control change is to approve documentation prior to release.

Where I work we will not formally control engineerings drawings at the R&D development stage. It will be logged within our engineering software and assigned an "R&D Drawing Number" and Alphabetical revision number. This can be worked on and amended, updated and tweaked until the R&D phase of the design is complete. At that point, it will be formally released with prior approval from appropriate stakeholders. The document number is then assigned and the revision becomes numerical.

For example, Engineering Drawing "AX-102 Revision E", that had undergone 5 revisions at R&D stages would become "AX-102 Revision 1" upon formal release. If this released drawing was updated again, once released it would go to "AX-102 Revision 2"
 
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