Importance of Document Control in ISO 9001:2015

 

 

Document control falls under the purview of the Quality Management System (QMS) and is therefore required under ISO 9001:2015.

This article shall offer insight into the importance of document control in ISO 9001:2015.

 

In QMS, document controls include all the measures put in place to ensure governance over the access, addition, or alteration of its content. As provided for in ISO 9001:2015, the mandate of “control over documented information” is to ensure that only the right people maintain access to a Quality Management System when needed and that no unrecorded or unauthorized changes are made to its contents. Additionally, having document control ensures that an organization has access to recent procedures and policies that allow it to operate, and correct records and instructions.

 

Key considerations in document control

• The location to store the documents
• Creation of the documents
• The person responsible for the distribution of the documents to the appropriate parties
• The life of the documents
• Relevant permissions
• Protection of the documents from destruction
• Retrieval of the documents
• Security of the documents
• Validation for determining the authenticity of the documents
• Version control

 

Importance of document control

a.     Automation of tasks

Documentation control allows for the automation of any tasks related to documentation in the organization. Documents no longer have to be edited manually; a template style can be developed and applied to all documents to fit the in-house style automatically. Issues of productivity can now be eliminated, leaving the key members of the team to focus on other high-return organizational tasks.

b.     Reduced documentation errors

Having fast access to company data ensures that the number of documentation errors is reduced significantly. This is mainly because using document control streamlines the requisite pathway for document review. Management teams can access documents much faster and disseminate it to their respective teams for fact-checking and analysis. Document control also ensures that all this is done within the set timeframes. Instead of doing separate document analyses, document control allows the analysis of documents at the same time by the team members.

c.      Ensure that data is searchable and indexed

Lack of access to documented data is a key challenge that ails most growing organizations. This is mainly because they lack systems that can allow one to carry out a search for pertinent information. However, it is crucial to ensure that data related to important company projects and customers is easily available for utilization. Having a document control system will enable an organization to have a searchable data hub and index data, making it readily available for use.

 

Benefits of having a document management system 

• Access and share documents across the organization, whether you’re in the office or at home.
• Prevent the loss of data and the accidental deletion of records.
• Find documents quicker and easier with its enhanced search capabilities.
• Convert scanned files/images to text using the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) functionality and indexing capabilities.
• Protect and preserve documents and the integrity and authenticity of the information.
• Prevent unauthorized viewing of documents by allowing document administrators to create permissions based on each user's needs, privileges, and role.
• Track users who viewed, printed, and downloaded files with the Audit Trail feature. 
• Generate insight from business data using the Customizable Reports function.

 

Archive One for ISO document control

The management of ISO documentation is tedious to keep up with and demands a lot of man-hours to track. Archive One offers Scan-On-Demand and  Document Management System as a cost-saving solution for companies that need to comply with document control in accordance with the ISO standards and quality engineering practices.