Document naming convention ISO 9001, how to label your documents?

ISO 9000 is a family of standards that focuses on Quality Management systems (QMS) which helps organisations provide quality services and goods that comply with various laws, codes and requirements necessary for the industry.

QMS focuses on consistency, efficiency and improvement by providing a set of tools that keep a company’s processes consistent with each other.

The focus of QMS is on providing value and quality to the customer and helping employees find deficiencies in the system so that their daily workload can be improved. Out of ISO 9000 family, the ISO 9001 standard includes the specific requirements for creating a QMS and controlling your documents.

This article will discuss the document naming convention in ISO 9001 and how to enable your documents by the standard’s requirements.

ISO 9001 controlled documents

The ISO 9001 standard includes the requirements for controlled documents, which are the core of any quality management principle.

Controlled documents are procedures, policies and records that go through a specific process to be created or modified. Essentially, ISO 9000 dictates that seven controls must be established to create and manage a controlled document. These seven controls include minimising papers, increasing ease of access, appropriate categorisation, expertise, revision status, legibility, and distribution. on ISO 9001 documentation, you can get more information. 

ISO filing

The ISO filing standards contain the following set of criteria that are recommended for the documents in your organisation:

• A relevant team should approve the documents before their initial issue to ensure that the document is appropriate and accurate.
• Utilising an appropriate and declared timeline, documents should be reviewed, approved, updated and re-approved.
• There should be a note on each document about the revision number and the status, in addition to highlighting the changes made in the last revision. 
• Every user must be given a current version of these documents at all points of use, and every user must be notified about the updates.

• Documents should remain readily identifiable and legible. Hence, it is beneficial to involve a reference code or a numbering system and utilise a standard document format for all your documents.
• Any document that is of external origin should be similarly identified, managed and controlled.
• Outdated and obsolete documents should be removed. Additionally, any old document kept in circulation should be identifiable from the current approved versions.

Creating ISO 9000 procedure

These different points of use mentioned in the above paragraph help ensure that employees can always access the most current, approved version of any policy or procedure.

Reducing or eliminating access to editing or writing documents is key to maintaining quality. Generally, a document controller or an administrator is in-charge of restricting this access. The document controller creates all document controls, initiates reviews, makes modifications, and resubmits files for approval.

Reviewers should include the employees who frequently utilise the document in question, as their input would be the most valuable, and they would be able to identify what has changed since the previous revision.

Depending upon the organisation’s needs, the approval process can either include the eyes of a single individual or the consensus of an entire team. Having said that, a consensus is most beneficial for an organisation as it allows the document to be reviewed from multiple angles and includes different inputs.

Document naming convention ISO 9001

As every organisation has several different types of documents, choosing a document control numbering system may seem daunting. There are no specific requirements outlined in the ISO 9001 standard for document labelling procedures; the only specification is that ISO documents should be easily identifiable.

The document type can be differentiated by using a prefix, such as SOP for Standard Operating Procedure, POL for a Policy, etc.

Numbering can be done either sequentially or by utilising the numbering system in which each digit represents a specific document type. For example, SOP-5006 would mean the sixth standard operating procedure within the department designated as 5000.

Document labels should also be included as an easily understandable title. The title should also indicate the most recent review and approval date.

Generally, The author or the creator, the editor and the approval team should also be a reference for any user who needs to submit changes or has questions about the instructions.

Conclusion

Control of documents refers to procedures that documents must go through to create or modify. As per the requirements of ISO 9001, seven controls need to be established to create a controlled document, including minimising paper, ease of access, categorisation, expertise, revision status, legibility and distribution. There are no specific requirements in the ISO 9001 for document labelling, and the only requirement is that ISO documents should be easily identifiable.