Select Page

We believe there is a very easy and consistent way to create vendor document registers. While DocBoss automates this process for our customers, it is a straightforward method you can use independently.

We start by identifying various “levels” in the order information. The biology keeners may remember taxonomy “ranks” like Kingdom, Class, Order, Genus, Species. When looking at order information, we start with the following levels:

Unit
Tag
Model
Manufacturer
Order

Given a set of sample order data:

Line Manufacturer Model Tag Description
1 NewCo XXX 101 Black Widget
2 NewCo XXX 102 Black Widget
3 NewCo XXY 101 Red Widget
4 NewCo ZZZ 101 Container
5 Acme AAA 101 Tool

We can easily identify how many unique references are associated with each level .

Level References Qty
Unit [Line 1,2,3,4,5] 5
Tag [101, 102] 2
Model [XXX, YYY, ZZZ, AAA] 4
Manufacturer [NewCo, Acme] 2
Order [PO#1] 1

The next step is the most critical component of the process to create document registers.
Lets assume the following document codes have been requested for the order

Code Name
A01 MRB
B01 Quality Manual
C01 Safety Manual
D01 Drawing
E01 Material Test Report
F01 Completed Instrument Data Sheet

Our realization is that each document can be associated to a specific rank. In most cases the below applies:

Code Name Level Qty
A01 MRB Order 1
B01 Quality Manual Manufacturer 2
C01 Safety Manual Manufacturer 2
D01 Drawing Model 4
E01 Material Test Report Unit 5
F01 Completed Instrument Data Sheet Tag 2

This gives you all POSSIBLE documents required on the order. A total of 16 documents.

Note that another step is often required, to determine which of these 16 documents are required. We’ll address that in a different post.

What do you use for document control? Are you looking for a better way?