I have just began working for my new employer and I am preparing an assessment of their document control system. The first item that stood out to me was the numerous amounts of engineering change orders within days of a drawing's initial release. This is waste and not typical in my experience. Any ideas or methods to reduce this wasted activity? Appreciate it!
Yeah. This happens in a lot of organizations where someone gets an inkling that changes to a document need to be formal and then they go overboard in trying to affix a change letter each time the original author or one of the approvers of the document gets a new bright idea for an amendment or deletion to a document.
Here's the way many efficient organizations handle the system:
- somebody has an idea for an original document
- he or someone else is selected to author the document
- the first draft of the document, identified as "DRAFT #1" is circulated among one or more other folks for either approvals as is or suggestions for changes
- if there are no suggestions or changes, the document is approved and "released for use" with ANY naming or numbering system which makes sense to the organization.
- if there are suggestions for changes, they may be discussed among the approval group or with experts outside the initial approval group until a consensus is reached.
- once consensus is reached, document goes back to original author for the next "DRAFT #2" and then cycles through the approval process again and again until ALL approvals are in place, at which time, the naming or numbering changes from "DRAFT" to the nomenclature used in approved documents.
The key is not to give a formal number to a document UNTIL it has gone through the "DRAFT" and "APPROVAL" stages.
Sometimes, after all approvals and formal release of the document for use, but BEFORE it is implemented, somebody (whether in the original approval group or not) discovers an error or suggests a change. Many organizations may make a "temporary" approval of the change, often called a "redline change" to allow use to go forward because the time lag of going through the formal approval process might cause a cascading effect on other processes. A "Redline change" should never be made as a matter of regular practice and then only when sufficient information is available to assure the "formal approval process" will accept the redline change as a new revision to the document.
Similarly, "redline changes" may take place AFTER implementation of the document for the same reason outlined above.
Most organizations which resort to "redline" also have an expedited approval process to rapidly go through the formal approval process to issue a new revision to the document.
My experience with "redline" is primarily in "aftermarket aerospace" where an engineer overseeing installation on an individual aircraft will note some characteristic of the aircraft not previously known when the installation documents were prepared. A flurry of phone calls, emails with photos, conferences with aircraft owners, etc. ensues and a decision is made to "redline" the documents to complete the installation and not delay an aircraft on the ground any longer than absolutely necessary. The part responsible for creating the original document then prepares a formal revision which catches up to the aircraft sometime later and the redline copy is withdrawn.The FAA condones this practice by allowing "minor" changes to such documents to be reported to the FAA AFTER the fact, whereas "major" changes may not be made without FAA pre-approval. So a big part of the decision to redline or not to redline is whether the change is "major" or minor."
An example of such a minor change might be relocating a borehole through a bulkhead because the original designated location has a rack of some sort attached from some previous aftermarket product. The relocated borehole may only be inches away from the original design.