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What is the Control of Engineering Documents Procedure for a Quality Management System (QMS)?
The Control of Engineering Documents Procedure is an SOP inside a Quality Management System (QMS) that specifies the process for controlling engineering documents such as design specifications, technical drawings, and procedures. The goal of this approach is to keep these documents accurate, up-to-date, and available to the right employees, while also keeping control over any changes or updates made.
This procedure covers the requirements for the control of engineering documents. This is an essential document control procedure that ensures all engineering drawings and related technical documents necessary for completing the works, such as shop drawings by vendors, manufacturers, and subcontractors on projects are duly registered, reviewed, approved, and transmitted in a controlled manner.
The procedure of engineering documents and drawings control guarantees that these documents are available on the projects to all parties who need them and are promptly retrievable. This procedure is appropriate for all projects unless differently determined by the project management.
Other reference documentation includes engineering management, engineering drawings, as-built documentation, and document transmittal protocols.
The following person has responsibilities for the implementation of activities of this procedure:
- Project Manager
- Project Document Controller
- Project Engineering Manager
Definitions and Abbreviations
EDMS: Electronic Document Management System which there are various proprietary systems firms use worldwide.
Collaboration portals: Proprietary web-based electronic document management and data-sharing systems
Controlled document: A document or drawing which is registered and kept under the direct revision control of the project document controller or directly accessed through an EDMS
Document Control Procedure
Soft Copy: Electronic file of a document or drawing.
Uncontrolled document: a document or drawing that does not have any form of regulation or management in place. This means that it is not subject to any formal process of review, approval, or version control. Uncontrolled documents may be used for reference or information purposes, but they should not be relied upon for accuracy or completeness, as they may be outdated or contain errors.
It is important to distinguish uncontrolled documents from controlled documents, which are subject to strict management procedures to ensure their accuracy, validity, and currency.
Control of Engineering Documents Procedure for Quality Management System
The Project technical / engineering manager must make sure that all engineering documents, correspondence, and records, including ‘as-built’ documents are controlled in order to meet the necessary quality requirements.
The Project Engineering Manager shall appoint a Project Document Controller who will oversee the filing, management of registers, and distribution of technical documents and records.
This procedure understands that, for some project sites, EDMS may be unavailable and so, this procedure outlines the process for document control in both cases.
Documents Register
a) Registers shall be utilized to handle the design correspondence and documents.
b) The following registers shall be developed and maintained by the document controller:
i. Technical Drawings –
ii. Transmittals
iii. Design Reviews
iv. Design Change Requests (DCRs)
v. Request for Information (RFI)
vi. Engineering Deliverables (Engineering technical documents such as specifications, datasheets, etc.)
vii. Value Improving Practices, etc.
c) These registers shall be kept up to date with unambiguous reference to a current revision number.
d) It is the obligation of the user to confirm the latest revision by checking it against the document registry.
Correspondence and Filing
a) Records shall be filed, and preserved in such a way that they shall be conveniently recovered, and safeguarded from damage.
b) The nominated signature for any correspondence relevant to engineering concerns shall be the project engineering manager or the project manager.
Control of Documents and Drawings
The sections below describe the processes to control documents and drawings with and without an EDMS.
Control When EDMS Not Available
Upon award of the contract, the Project Engineering Manager shall prepare a document distribution matrix that specifies the types of documents and drawings requiring control and the list of recipients. The project engineering manager shall then inform the project document controller accordingly.
All documents and drawings acquired from external sources by any member of the Project team or developed in-house shall be forwarded to the document controller to be registered prior to any other action to be taken.
Upon receipt, the project document controller performs the following activities:
After registration, the project document controller transmits the original documents and drawings to the project engineering manager for review.
At this point, if the documents and drawings are released by the project engineering manager, the project document controller arranges for copies to be printed and issues them to all personnel in accordance with the document distribution matrix.
The document controller shall retain and file the master copy of all controlled documents and drawings and they shall not be issued for general staff usage.
When the engineering manager requests that a review shall be determined in accordance with engineering management procedure.
Refer to the procedure for As-Built paperwork for guidelines on the management of ‘as-built’ documents received from consultants or vendors.
Document Control Using Electronic Document Management System EDMS
The process for control of documents and drawings using an EDMS is the same except that the Project Document Controller shall record details and upload the soft copies of the documents and drawings into the EDMS.
Managing the Soft copies of Controlled Copy Documents
The sections below describe the processes to maintain soft copies of documents and drawings.
Labelling Soft Copies
To ensure the simple recovery of digital file copies, the naming of digital copies shall follow the necessary EDMS regulations. The Project Document Controller shall define these procedures and ensure that they are disseminated to all users.
Distribution of Soft Copy Documents
All drawings to be issued through email shall be issued in a compressed format using proprietary software.
Drawing files not to be compressed together in one file where file size exceeds 1 Mb or such lesser size as required by project internet communication constraints. For drawings requiring huge amounts of memory, each drawing is compressed as an independent file and forwarded as a separate message by email.
Documents or drawings issued by email shall carry the following statement in or adjacent to the title block for drawings or cover sheet title block for documents:
“A hard copy of this document I drawing has been signed by the people whose names appear in the title block below.”
In addition, a document transmittal form signed by a fully authorized person shall be faxed, mailed, or emailed to the relevant party being issued with electronic files. The document transmittal may be either created by the EDMS or form document transmittal where EDMS is not used.
A statement accompanying the transmittal notice is worded as: – “I hereby confirm that the documents/drawings listed above have been reviewed and are approved to the status indicated above.”
Controlled Copy Document Transmittal
A document transmittal form is a cover letter or memo stating the following:
- Name of the party receiving the documents or drawings
- Name of the party issuing the documents or drawings
- The title and revision of drawings or documents issued, reference number
- The date when the documents or drawings are issued
- The form in which the documents or drawings are issued (i.e. soft copy, hard copy, e-mail)
- The number of hard copies issued
- The reason for issuing the drawings or documents (i.e. for approval, for information, for construction, etc.)
The document transmittal process also demands that the receiver returns an acknowledgment to the sender either by fax, mail or by email. This is a key phase in the process.
All documents and drawings issued by the company, whether by hard copy, as computer files or email attachments shall be accompanied by the document transmittal form for document transmittal
Transmittal Register shall be used to produce transmittal reference numbers and record details of drawings issued to recipients and acknowledgments received from recipients.
Controlled Documents and Drawings
‘Controlled’ documents or drawings are those which remain under the direct control of the Project Document Controller via the document distribution processes mentioned above. These documents shall be clearly designated as CONTROLLED by the document controller using a CONTROLLED status the stamp shall be in a distinguishing color.
All other records and drawings issued shall be assumed to be ‘uncontrolled’. This includes copies of controlled drawings issued to recipients for information only shall be ‘uncontrolled’ documents and shall be clearly labeled ‘Uncontrolled’. The recipients of these drawings shall not be included in the distribution matrix.
The project document controller ensures that all documents and drawings are accurately stamped.
Superseded Revisions of Controlled Copies
Superseded hard copies of documents or drawings with an alpha or numeric revision indicator must be marked ‘Superseded’. – Similarly, all computer files of superseded documents or drawings shall be filed in a ‘Superseded’ directory and an electronic ‘Superseded’ stamp shall also be used wherever possible.
The documents or drawing registration is to be updated to reflect the current revision.
Superseded documents or documents shall be labeled as such and either stamped ‘Superseded’ or stated otherwise, and shall be withdrawn from point of use.
The Project Document Controller shall retain the master copies of all superseded documents or drawings.
Canceled Documents or Drawings
The document controller shall tell all recipients of documents or drawings in the event that any documents or drawings have been canceled.
Recipients of documents or drawings subsequently canceled shall be directed to write or stamp ‘CANCELLED’ over the title block. Where the canceled document or drawing has been supplanted by another document or drawing, a note indicating the new document or drawing must be written onto the canceled document or drawing.
A remark shall also be included on the new record or drawing in the revision history box stating ‘This document / drawing supersedes document / drawing no. …’ with the relevant document number included.
All changes to documents or drawings shall be documented in the relevant registry. The control of cross-reference drawings shall be as per the procedure of engineering drawings.
The distribution of technical documents will be identical to that indicated above for drawings.
- Relevant Records – Design correspondence and documents registers
- Document distribution matrix – Engineering drawing and document register – A master copy of all documents and drawings
- Document transmittal – Transmittal registry
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