This is a repost from about 18 months ago regarding how a document control system can help your documentation work. It’s always a good idea to re-evaluate system practices to ensure they meet your current needs and since we’re at year-end, it’s great time to prepare for 2017. Here are some questions to ask yourself about your document control system.
As a supplier you rely heavily on your project document process to keep organized and on top of critical projects and timelines. What if you could be spending less time manually creating, tracking and submitting documents and more time on writing proposals writing proposals, designing and managing projects – instead of managing paperwork??
We have put together 5 questions to ask yourself about your current system that will help you identify if you could benefit from a better process. Here we go:
1. Does your current document control system require order data/bill of materials information?
If your system doesn’t connect to order data, there is no way it can dynamically build the document register. Likewise, it cannot provide all of the meta-data demanded by your customer – specifically the tag lists. Why duplicate work that you have already done?
2. Does your system monitor changes to your order/BoM, and identify affected documents?
Projects change all the time! When your project changes, your document system should identify documents which may now be obsolete and add any new registers required.
3. Does your document control system support document workflow in three directions?
To your customer, back to your sub-supplier, plus routing to internal users? Often when documents are rejected by your customer, they must be sent back to your sub-suppliers for incorporation of comments, or routed to internal resources to review and update the documents. Does your system support that workflow inside the application?
4. Does your system allow customized templates for every project including cover pages, transmittals, and indexes?
Many customers demand that their templates be used to submit documentation. Your system should allow you to change templates for any project to ensure you comply with the specifics of each customer spec.
5. And finally, does your system automate the databook process?
Since your system already houses all of the documents, it really should be capable of compiling the manufacturing databooks in the customers required format.
If you answered yes to all of these questions, congratulations! You are definitely maximizing your efficiencies within your current system. However, if you answered no to any of these questions – you should really consider using a more robust solution (like DocBoss) that eliminates the manual work required when managing and submitting documents to Engineering Companies.