IEC 82045: Document management

During the last decades, industry has undergone a thorough transition from manual practice

to computer support for the creation and exchange of information. However, the manual

practices and standards for handling documentation have not undergone a corresponding

process. The situation is that the well-documented manual methods for design co-operation

and co-ordination – a system for process quality assurance common to the industry – is being

replaced by procedures specific to projects and companies. The result is that, although every

single actor strives to assure the quality of his own products and services, the process may

fail in achieving overall product and process quality. The information, interfaces and

networking become industry key factors.

The potential benefits include

– efficient search and retrieval of specific documents;

– quick and direct propagation of changes;

– automatic workflow procedures;

– providing document collections about related information;

– reduced administration through integration of document production and management;

– retrieval of knowledge from previous projects and common industry sources;

– supporting the exchange and sharing of data;

– supporting collaborative engineering.

IEC 62023:2000, Structuring of technical information and documentation

ISO 9000:2000, Quality management systems – Fundamentals and vocabulary

ISO 10007:1995, Quality management – Guidelines for configuration management

ISO 15226:1999, Technical product documentation – Life cycle model and allocation of

documents

The document concept covers not only traditional paper-based documents, but also computer-based information that is handled as a unit (a closed container of information).

This unit is identified, structured, processed, controlled, interchanged and communicated.

4.3.2 Compound document

A document may result as being composed from more than one type of document, for example a technical specification document, made up of, for example text files and/or pictorial representation files. Each file may be produced by different software applications.

See Figure 2. The document resulting does not know its former process of preparation.

The following phases may be distinguished:

– initiation;

– preparation;

– establishment (check and approval);

– use;

– revision;

– withdrawal, and

– deletion.

6.2 Initiation phase

6.2.1 General

This phase includes the initiation of a document, providing and capturing data required for the

later preparation of a document. This phase is comparable with the setting-up of a

manufacturing planning process. The phase does not include the preparation/establishing of

the content of the document, i.e. the population of the document with presentations and data

of the referred objects. The result of this phase is the framework, under which the referred

document(s) are prepared.

6.3 Preparation phase

This phase starts after the initiation of a document and includes the production of a document

until the document is forwarded to the establishment activity.

To a considerable extent, new documents are based on other documents or parts thereof. In

the most systematic form, template documents or references to type documents are used. The

identity of the source document shall be preserved, in particular when there is such a

requirement, for example copyright reasons, history management and legacy reasons.

6.4 Establishment phase

6.4.1 General

Before a document can be used for a specific purpose, it is usually, for quality assurance

reasons, run through an approval process that may contain several steps. In a typical

workflow for a document, the issuing party first checks it internally within the organization,

and then it is co-ordinated with other specialists. After necessary changes, parties external to

the organization, for example customer and/or authority may be involved in the approval.

Environment of a document management system