ISO 9001 Standards Document control procedures

ISO 9001 Standards Document control procedures
The ISO 9001 Standards requires that a documented procedure be established to define the controls needed.

This requirement means that the methods for performing the various activities required to control different types of documents should be defined and documented.

Although the ISO 9001 standards implies that a single procedure is required, should you choose to produce several different procedures for handling the different types of documents it is doubtful that any auditor would deem this noncompliant. Where this might be questionable is in cases where there is no logical reason for such differences and where merging the procedures and settling on a best practice would improve efficiency and effectiveness.

Documents are recorded information and the purpose of the document control process is to firstly ensure the appropriate information is available where needed and secondly to prevent the inadvertent use of invalid
information. At each stage of the process are activities to be performed that may require documented procedures in order to ensure consistency and predictability. Procedures may not be necessary for each stage in the process.