Deciding how to control your documents can be difficult. ISO 9001 requires you to maintain accurate and up-to-date procedures, but doesn’t give a lot of guidance on how to get there. Between the requirements and the implementation lie grey areas and confusion. Let’s take a look at the difference between what is required and what is a good idea in the world of document review.
Do you have to review your procedures and turtle maps once a year?
As per ISO 9001 you do not have to review your procedures once a year. However you must check your own procedures, especially your own Document Control procedure, to see if you have impose on yourself to do this. Perhaps not your Document Control procedure but the Master List of Documents may also contain a column titled “next review” which may tell you when is the next required review date for your procedures, forms or documents. Or you may also check your Quality Manual, you never know but there may be things you signed up to do and therefore you must do those.
What does ISO requires as far as review then?
ISO requires that your procedures, work instructions, etc. are always accurate and truly represent what the steps to accomplish your processes are. How you ensure that accuracy is up to you. Most people resort for setting a time for reviewing procedures, such as in this very case – once a year. Other people may decide to review their documents every two years and others every three years. In a company where the procedures are very dynamic and they are constantly being revised, there may not even be a need for a formal review, since the procedures are probably being reviewed every time they are updated.
So do I really need to review them periodically?
If your organization does not update procedures very often or is not well disciplined yet at the fact that every time a process changes, they need to go and update the procedure, then your organization may benefit from implementing a set review time. I once audited an organization whose procedures were 3 years old and they had a lot of things that were not applicable anymore. Basically they changed their processes and never went back to update their procedures. That was not good, so they decided to implement a set review date every year. On the other hand, I have also audited a company that had some procedures that were seven years old and were still accurate because their business was not very dynamic. In this case, even though everything was fine, they decided to implement a review date of every three years, because it is a good practice and perhaps it would force them to think of better ways to do things given that technology is always changing.
What is the Final Word?
Hopefully you get the idea that there is not a right or wrong way to do Document Review. Remember that ensuring your procedures, work instructions, forms ,etc. are true to what your company actually does is the ultimate goal and your organization needs to decide how to accomplish that goal.
This article was published by Quality Digest on 07/21/2012.
