Specific Question about Printing Controlled Documents.

[LeonelAguilar352]

Hi there!

I want to ask about Controlled Documents, but it's something specific just to see if what I want to do is legit and I won't get in trouble with the auditor this year.

We have an internal software that connects us to the server of the leader company. With this software we are able to see our drawings for the switches we build, not the customer prints.

The way it works now is that if production need a drawing, they fill a request form which is delivered to Document Control Department, over there they print the drawing and put a Controlled Copy stamp, after that they get it to production.

What I wanted to do is to set up that software in the production area so it may be easy and faster to access for Group Leaders and set up the printer to have a Watermark stamped on every drawing that they print with the legend "Controlled Copy". This way the Document Control User may use his time just to verify in our database that the current drawing revision is the current one.

Any feedback will be appreciated.

Thank you!

 

[qualityfox]

Have you considered how you intend to prevent unintended use of obsolete documents? If the Group Lead is able to print as many "controlled" copies as he/she wants, how will you ensure these are removed from circulation if the print is changed. In my experience, people like to hoard such things and they always show up during an external audit.

 

[LeonelAguilar352]

Have you considered how you intend to prevent unintended use of obsolete documents? If the Group Lead is able to print as many "controlled" copies as he/she wants, how will you ensure these are removed from circulation if the print is changed. In my experience, people like to hoard such things and they always show up during an external audit.

Thanks for the feedback!

Currently we have two sets of drawings; one goes for the Group Leader so they can see the proper assembly, this includes drawings of components all the way to final product; the other set of drawings go for the Quality Inspector of that production line, she only has the drawing of final product.

Group Leaders have a binder where they keep their drawings in order, so that way when we receive an Engineer Change we simply take out the old drawing and replace it with the new one (this is done by the Document Control User).

Quality Inspectors have their history folders in which they save all the records needed for each time they inspect the final product, in this folder they put the latest revision of the drawing so they can conduct their inspections and, again, when an Engineer Change is done the Document User goes to the corresponding folder and changes the old drawing for the new one.

I was hoping that with this process there would be no problem in that area of controlling the probability of excessive printing.

 

[PaulJSmith]

Another question: What is to keep someone from altering those printed drawings?

You might instead consider a stamp which marks those as "Uncontrolled Documents" once they are printed.

 

[LeonelAguilar352]

Another question: What is to keep someone from altering those printed drawings?

You might instead consider a stamp which marks those as "Uncontrolled Documents" once they are printed.

What do you mean by "altering those printed drawings"? The software does not allow to edit, just print and change rotation of the drawing. If someone was cleaver enough to make a screen shot of that they would need Paint or Power Point at least, which none of those are installed on that computer.... But maybe I'm misunderstanding the question.

As of the stamp, I don't believe that's valid because Uncontrolled Documents are those which won't be used for production or anything that may affect the quality of the product, correct?. Having a stamp of Uncontrolled Document on drawings that are used to assemble pieces would be a bad point for me in the audit, right?

 

[qualityfox]

I guess I'm not understanding how the Document Controller knows to put a replacement in the Group Leader book. If the Group Leader can print controlled copies on demand, how does the Document Controller know which prints are in the book. If all prints are in the book, why didn't the Document Controller add it at publication time?
You know your system and your people. If you do not foresee a problem with obsolete documents, then the system will work. Just make sure that those who are printing understand the concept of "controlled documents".
At my present company, we do the opposite. We have a watermark that says "uncontrolled" and our procedure says they can use uncontrolled as long as it matches the controlled copy on the computer.

 

[LeonelAguilar352]

At my present company, we do the opposite. We have a watermark that says "uncontrolled" and our procedure says they can use uncontrolled as long as it matches the controlled copy on the computer.

Thank you so much, I was not aware that such exception could be done, now I get what Paul was saying. It is a lot simple to do this.

Thank you again!

 

[Golfman25]

IMO, you're nuts if you are trying to "control" drawings on the production floor. When you control it, you have to know where it is and be able to recall it for revision. In our system, anything that is printed is uncontrolled.

We attach an uncontrolled copy of the drawing to the work order. The order is run and the work order and drawing are collected, filed and eventually disposed of. If a drawing is revised while a work order is active, it is easy to find and replace. If someone comes across an old printed version, they know to check for the latest update.