In today's highly regulated markets, document control is a key tool for businesses that want to stay compliant. By centralizing and streamlining document management, a company can more easily follow quality standards (QS) and regulations (FDA, ISO, EU, and others). Every process for quality, compliance and regulation must begin here. Let us see why you should implement a document control system for your company.
What is the Definition of Document Control?
Document control is a subfield of the larger field of document management. It focuses on controlled ways to create, review, change, issue, distribute, and make documents available. Document control is an important part of risk management in every business because it can be used in many different areas. To avoid confusion, compare it to EDM, CMS, and DCRM. Document controllers may use many different kinds of software for their jobs.
What Does Document Control Do?
Document control ensures that all documentation is up-to-date, correct, carefully reviewed, and officially approved so that customers can trust its information. Document control also helps with auditing because it keeps track of all the manual and automated steps that make, exchange, and change documents.
For every company to have a quality control system that works (QMS), document control must be in place. Having strict procedures for managing documents ensures that only approved and up-to-date documents are used. Companies regulated by the government must follow the rules for document control set by ISO 9001.
When Should You Retain Control of a Document?
Doing document control is necessary if the document requires any of the following:
- Product authentication testing.
- Determine or administer processes.
- Production staff need to make decisions.
- Production staff need to make decisions.
- Train employees.
- Adhere to the standards set by ISO 9001.
Does Document Control have all of Document Management's benefits?
The answer is yes. When compared to document management, document control is more secure. Document management is different since it deals with the organization, accessibility, search, and retrieval of digital records. On the other hand, document control provides an additional layer of protection and control over documents and ensures that your organization's paper and electronic document flows are seamlessly integrated. Businesses in regulated sectors who need to keep records under lock and key will find this particularly useful.
Modalities for Maintaining Records
The following processes should each have their dedicated section in your document control system.
Creation
Don't forget to note who drafted each file. This includes naming standards.
Review
Specifying who will be responsible for conducting the review and what documents need to be reviewed is an important part of these policies. The documentation and approval process for reviews should be described in detail.
Revision
Who is responsible for making changes after the initial review has been completed and how those changes are to be made and documented should be outlined in the procedure manual. After a document has been updated, any previous versions are no longer valid and are stored in an archive.
Replacement
Sometimes you need to get a new one because the old one needs to be renewed or updated. Provide details on how often this document must be updated and, by whom, what should be done with outdated copies.
When and why is document control useful?
The quality management system's paperwork needs to be closely watched. Also, records must be kept and controlled to show that the quality management system is working well and to ensure that it meets requirements.
The goal of a document control system is to make daily business operations more efficient and effective by using best practices for managing documents.
Let's look at some of the ways it's helpful.
Benefits of DCS
Improved Document Availability
Suppose you want to assess and review documentation before approving new product lifecycle stages. In that case, a powerful document management system may make all of your documents, including all documents, easy to access in a short amount of time. Then, if something doesn't seem right, you can go back to older versions and look at each part to see what went wrong and fix it.
More Transparency Regarding Business Activities
Document control enables your firm to foster greater accountability levels, which benefits your workforce and activities.
Gained Attention from Important stakeholders
Businesses can better meet customer needs with a good document management system. Also, this kind of quick thinking may give the team a boost they didn't expect but are glad to get.
Enhanced Security for Documents
A good system for managing your documents and their contents keeps your documents and their contents safe. On the other hand, an ad hoc document control solution is more likely to rely on the security practices of third-party vendors who do not share your goals.
Boosts Productivity
According to statistics, 47% of all knowledge workers spend part of their day researching a topic. If you want your staff to be able to find any document in seconds, you'll need to control the document lifecycle and use metadata strictly.
A full document control system also ensures that staff work on the most recent document version.
Boosts Adaptability
One of the best things about using a document control system is how easy it is to keep track of things like who has access to what, which versions of documents different people are working on, and where the most recent version is located. Because of this, once you've mastered the art of change management, you'll be able to talk to internal and external stakeholders more effectively.
Aids in the Prompt Recovery of Vital Data
With document control, it's easy to keep track of all your documents. As the word "control" suggests, if you take charge of your documents, you'll have access to the latest versions of all relevant files. With document control in place, you can be sure that all previous versions of a document have been saved and that the one you're looking at right now is the most recent.
DSC Aids Audits
Lacking efficient document control, you may miss deadlines for providing necessary data to internal or external auditors.
The benefits given above are the reasons to implement a document control system. Your vendor must ensure your document control system plays a big part in identifying and accessing management by keeping confidential records from falling into the wrong hands. Also, they should make it easy for authorized users to get in, so they can search for and get back both active and inactive documents quickly. QISS's Document control will help you get all the benefits and also lead you to follow ISO procedures.