Those who were used to keeping company records but have never been certified might be perplexed by the wording in the ISO 9001:2015 standard of documented information. What is this documented information? Do you need to update the company records?
Are they still the documents that were talked about in the previous versions of the standard? To answer these questions, let's start by understanding better what is the role of documented information within the company and then we will try to understand if it should be updated.
Documented information is divided into two types:
- documents
- records
Let's see what are the two roles within an organization.
Documents
Documents are information that establishes where the company wants to go, how employees should act and how individual activities should be performed. They serve to guide people in relation to some process, procedure, task, etc. and to show how the activity should be carried out. Formalized processes and procedures, work instructions, tutorials, manuals, guides, templates, forms and checklists are all examples of this type of documented information.
Records
Records, on the other hand, are a support to indicate what happened in the past or anything that shows the result of something that has been performed. They serve as "proof" that something has happened, they record the facts. They are created to be consulted and show how an activity, a project or an action plan has been carried out in the past. Photos, videos, invoices, minutes of meetings, audit reports, proposals signed by customers, filled-in data forms are examples of this type of documented information.
But then? Which documented information needs to be updated? Keeping in mind that: documents guide your future and records show what has been done in the past, it is much easier to understand what needs to be updated. Can you change the past? Certainly not! Here, therefore, our attention must focus on the documents.
Documented information was included in ISO 9001:2015 not for the purpose of creating bureaucracy, but to:
- support your company's processes (point 4.4);
- preserve one of the organization's most important assets: knowledge (point 7.1.6);
- help the company develop skills (point 7.2);
- assist the planning of the organization (point 8.1);
- ensure better products and services (point 8.3);
- etc.
- Creating, maintaining, and retaining records and documents should not be done because ISO 9001:2015 requires it, but because it will help you and your company work better, achieve more informed and therefore better results.