Red Stamped Printed Paper vs. Electronic Documents

[kgott]

Re: Red stamped , electronic?

Printed documents are not always out of date. Why not use something like 'priinted documents may be out of date, check for latest revision before use'.

 

[Stijloor]

Re: Red stamped , electronic?

Printed documents are not always out of date. Why not use something like 'printed documents may be out of date, check for latest revision before use'.

The recipients may not always be able to check for the latest revision.

Stijloor.

 

[Big Jim]

Re: Red stamped , electronic?

The recipients may not always be able to check for the latest revision.

Stijloor.

I would go further and say usually not able to check for the latest revision.

 

[Mikishots]

HI everybody

Recently when managing Document control regarding "Controlled copy",I got several doubts when using electronic documents.

In our old ISO (1994)we delivered a copy of documents to whoever people need it, then stamped it "Controlled copy" in red color.

That way, only the red stamped copy was valid, any other copy without red stamped was not valid.

Certainly, some years ago printed document usage was very useful

Now we want to use electronic documents, which resid in our intranet, thus eliminating the printing of docs.

One point:

How can we manage the red stamped concept in electronic documents?

Second point:

Also in this case are involved the signatures, are scanned signatures (jpg) inserted into the documents valid? or is better to sign in the paper and scan the document?

Please feed me back in this issue.

Thanks

A method to consider:

Controlled copies (.pdf only) are made available on the Intranet; they are watermarked with the text "Signed Original on file. This document is uncontrolled when printed".

If the document is on the Intranet, it is considered to be the only current version. This is a responsibility of Document Control, and follows the rule that if it's on the Intranet, it's current.

The signed original hardcopy resides with Document Control and is kept locked up.

Any controlled hardcopies that are on a distribution list (to areas that do not have readily available Intranet access) will bear a red "Controlled Copy" stamp and do not bear the watermark. When a revision occurs, the obsolete controlled hardcopies are to be collected and destroyed. This is also the responsibility of the Document Control staff.

 

[kgott]

Any controlled hardcopies that are on a distribution list (to areas that do not have readily available Intranet access) will bear a red "Controlled Copy" stamp and do not bear the watermark.

Mikishots; There are more knowledgeable people on this forum when it comes to document control than I but as I understand the 9001 standard. Control means ensuring the latest revision of a given document (indicated by date and alpha numeric indicator) is located at the point of use and knowing where those points of use are.

To my way of thinking; this means that you don’t need to use a controlled copy stamp on a document in order for the current revision status of the document to be identified.

I know one of the weakness of any form of status marking found on a hard copy document, is that there is no definitive way of knowing with 100% certainty that it is the latest revision without checking against the document on the intranet, in the wiki document or in a master list, whatever is used.

 

[pldey42]

The red stamp didn't work by itself. It relied upon a process. In my experience of such systems (which was many years ago), when a document changed, the document control people would locate all the controlled copies and update them. The stamp was red because the photocopiers that were in general use at that time would not do colour. Training everyone in document control was simple: look for the red stamp and don't use anything that's got the stamp in black without first being darned sure it was up to date. In large organizations it only worked because the document control people were fearsome.

Whatever you write on the changed documents, electronic or paper, red stamp, watermark or message about being uncontrolled, it won't work without a process at the supplier to make sure people use correct copies. For example, writing "uncontrolled if printed" will not work if people at the supplier do not know what "uncontrolled" means, why it matters and from where to get the right version.

(It will be even harder if you're ordering x amount of product to design drawing version 2, and a smaller trial order of y amount of product to design drawing version 2.1 because in such a situation you expressly do not want everyone working to the same version: current production is at version 2, but trials of the next version are at 2.1 and your orders and quantities are different.)

It seems to me therefore that you should insist that your supplier has a process for managing document change, such that the right versions are in use. For your ISO 9001-certified suppliers this ought to be easy since they must have a process for controlling documents of external origin (including yours).

For non-certified suppliers, if it were me I would either require them to control documents I send them in an ISO 9001 fashion (and go audit to make sure), or ask them to get certified (because if they can't control docs, what else can't they do?).

If I and the supplier were truly in the 21st century, maybe, just maybe, I'd make the docs available on a password-protected website that I control with print privileges disabled (only works if they have internet-connected computers at all points of use and no need to print).

Hope this helps,
Pat

 

[Mikishots]

Mikishots; There are more knowledgeable people on this forum when it comes to document control than I but as I understand the 9001 standard. Control means ensuring the latest revision of a given document (indicated by date and alpha numeric indicator) is located at the point of use and knowing where those points of use are.

To my way of thinking; this means that you don’t need to use a controlled copy stamp on a document in order for the current revision status of the document to be identified.

I know one of the weakness of any form of status marking found on a hard copy document, is that there is no definitive way of knowing with 100% certainty that it is the latest revision without checking against the document on the intranet, in the wiki document or in a master list, whatever is used.

I see what you're saying. We use the stamp to allow the doc control clerks to easily identify the controlled copy. The stamp isn't used to identify the current revision status of the document, rather it's used to identify the current document.

As far as crosschecking with the Intranet to determine currency, it still comes down to diligence; doc control staff need to ensure that the Intranet version is current, just as staff relying on the hard copy need to ensure that their copy is current.

 

[pldey42]

I used a paper-only system some 20 years ago. We were designing telecommunications equipment. There were dozens of paper documents under version control, controlled by document controllers with red stamps. The update process was reliable.

Design engineers were using these documents all of the time. Had they been checking that a document was current before they used it they would have spent all their working time in a queue at the drawing office (who controlled documentation) asking if a document was current. The drawing office would have had no time to do anything but answer queries.

All of this diligent checking would have been a complete waste of everyone's time because the change management process was reliable. It should not be necessary for users to have to waste time checking currency of hard copies if the change management process has been properly designed and is well managed.