Recently this topic has come in from a couple different customers. Our customers have come to us with the understanding that their customer is requesting sequence numbers to be part of the document number. This is typical. What is not typical however, is if the customer is requesting that the sequence number be in fact a submittal count sequence number.
If the impression our customer has is correct, this would mean the document numbers would change throughout the project, which as we know, isn’t good document control practice. A document number shouldn’t change; therefore, we strongly discourage including things like revision, submittal count, or even tag numbers as part of a document number. Revisions continually change as do submittal counts, and tag numbers could change throughout the duration of a project.
What we are finding is that you can pair two variables together such as :
<Document_CustomerDocNumber> – <Document_SubmissionNumber> example: 4529KR-AC-001-01 – 00001.
This is as opposed to building document numbers using the submittal count number as the “sequence” to appease their customer’s request, especially if it’s for display on a cover page or even a transmittal.
This would show the customer what they want to see on the cover page and transmittal without compromising your document control practices by continuously changing any document number.
Have you encountered this request?
If so, did your customer want you to put the submittal count as part of the document number, or did they just want to see this on your cover page in addition to the standard document number?