What Is Document Control? A Tale as Old as Time
Why is Document Control Important?
Document control is an essential strategy for organizations that want to manage their documents more effectively and efficiently. It helps reduce the risk of duplication, improve searchability, and increase accuracy by providing appropriate access to accurate and up-to-date information.
Document Control also provides improved governance, compliance with standards and regulations, better document management processes and procedures, increased visibility into usage metrics, and enhanced security measures. With the right document control system in place, companies can protect their data from unauthorized access and ensure that confidential information remains confidential.
So what do you think? Do we need it? Absolutely!
Ponder the following scenario, then let me know what you think in the comments.
You've been searching a document for what feels like hours. You know it exists; it's printed on your desk right in front of you. But the digital version seems to have vanished into thin air. You've checked all the network drives and company repositories, but nothing's coming up.
Frustrated, you decide to look elsewhere. Perhaps someone else has a copy. You and your colleagues start sifting through mailboxes, hard drives, desktops and USBs - anything that might contain information about the elusive document.
Just as you're beginning to lose hope, you stumble across something promising: a folder (or many) with several versions of the same file, but none of them are labelled appropriately.
Could this be what you're looking for? Which is the current one? For all you know, some could be duplicates or superseded versions of the master file.
So you do what any sensible person would do: open each file and compare them side by side until you find the exact document you were looking for.
After such an exhaustive search process, you decide to create a copy and save it to your desktop, so you never have to repeat that process again.
And so the saga of lost and misfiled documents continues.
Document Control Definition
Document control manages and oversees all stages of a controlled document’s lifecycle, including its creation, modification, review cycles, issuance, distribution, and accessibility. This practice ensures an organization has easy access to current, accurate, and reliable information.
Comply with Regulatory Requirements
Not only that, but a well-engineered document control system is a critical tool for achieving compliance in highly regulated industries. It's a system that benefits organizations of all sizes.
It supports the management of files in accordance with the various regulations and quality management systems that may exist for your industry or internal company standards.
Overall, document control:
Is a tool that allows organizations to comply with federal and industry-defined regulations
Allows you to consistently create, identify, modify, track, distribute, and file documents
Is a form of risk mitigation and quality management
Provides end-users quick and easy access to up-to-date, reliable, and accurate information
Establishes internal guidelines for who can create, modify, and distribute documents
Provides the requirements that documents must be checked against to ensure internal compliance
What is the Purpose of Document Control?
Ideally, document control helps an organization document and track items that support a company's business operations. This includes documents with a specific use and often requires an approval workflow before it's formally published, released, and distributed.
In terms of project document control, that could include engineering drawings, procedures, templates, specifications, and quality documentation.
When documents of this nature require modification, changes and the reason for such changes must be identified along with the revision date and name of the person making the changes. This process is referred to as controlled revision tracking, which provides you with an audit trail of modifications that identify what changed, when, and by whom.
What about the risks?
Without a document control system in place, your organization is at risk of:
failing regulatory audits
incurring a financial loss due to wasted manhours and rework
increased exposure to safety incidents due to lost documents or work performed based on superseded revisions
Does your Document Management System need an overhaul?
Here’s some further reading to help improve your existing document control system.
What are Document Management Key Skills?
Learn How to Conduct an Internal Audit on Your Document Control System
The Top 6 Reasons You Should Enroll in a Document Control Course
Want to learn more?
We're just scratching the surface here.
If you want to learn the fundamentals of document control – what it is, why you need it, and how to perform common DC tasks so you can become a subject matter expert - check out and enroll in the Document Control Mastery online course. The only course you'll need to kick start your career in document control.
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