Tracking changes/versions made to SOP's

During our last SQF audit, our auditor brought up a point about how we track the changes or different versions of all of our SOP's.
Our SOP's are saved on a shard network drive and an appointed person in each department has the ability to update their own SOP's. Currently when a new version is created the old version is saved in a separate folder and kept for reference. The new version is then updated with the new version number and the reason for the update. Any small changes that do not create a new version are not tracked.

It was suggested by the auditor to use a log of some sort, but that does seem very effective or efficient when multiple people are able to edit the files.

Does anyone have any suggestions for a better method for tracking these changes?

Have one person, most likely your practitioner, be the sole editor of your records. This will eliminate redundancy and make record keeping easier.

As for a log: I keep all pre-req and quality programs in their own specified three-ring binder with a tracking record of revisions. This allows for a line-by-line chronology of revisions.

We have a document control program that tracks all of that for us.  It changes the versions, and gives an electronic signature to everything.  Even has an audit log, where we can put any changes, and it tracks who approves them, and also, who they are sent to for approvals, reviews, etc.

Ours have the Owner, creation date, revised date, revision number and also the annual review date.

The suggestions above are good.  But at very least you need one person who is the owner that monitors that the changes are correctly tracked and only versions are in use. 

If you don't make many changes to the documents, you can keep a change revision log at the bottom of each document that shows the date the change was made, who approved it and what the change was.  If you do make a lot of changes, the log can get very lengthy.

Example:

Change Revision Log

Date of Change                              Description of change                          Approved by

6/2/2014                                         Updated responsibility to Q.A.                               SM

IMO.. you can used list of document, that document containt list of your SOP (update version) and locatin of the SOP.

I have sample of LOD but i am sorry i dont know how to attach my file, may be some one can tell me

rgds

AS Nur

Hi Ncwingnut,

What is the name of that document control program?

Hi Iroche,

Make it a one man's responsibility and use a log sheet to track changes with dates, reason, responsibility and return of the "old' copies. If you want be to fancy use an electronic document control system called Q-Pulse.

IMO.. you can used list of document, that document containt list of your SOP (update version) and locatin of the SOP.

I have sample of LOD but i am sorry i dont know how to attach my file, may be some one can tell me
 
 
rgds

AS Nur

here the file that i used to control and tracking SOP

Rgds

AS Nur

here the file that i used to control and tracking SOP

 

Rgds

 

AS Nur

The suggestions above are good.  But at very least you need one person who is the owner that monitors that the changes are correctly tracked and only versions are in use. 

We have the owner - then I am the one that makes the changes to the documents as the **Document Controller**.  All changes come through me, so that we don't have multiple people making changes and not reporting them.

I've seen revisions in an excel file and they looked ugly to me...but it could just have been the way that spreadsheet was set up.  I use revision history at the end of the SOP.  It doesn't clutter you table of contents and it's easy to change as you're updating the SOP.

Hi Ncwingnut,

 

What is the name of that document control program?

SafeFood360

I've seen revisions in an excel file and they looked ugly to me...but it could just have been the way that spreadsheet was set up.  I use revision history at the end of the SOP.  It doesn't clutter you table of contents and it's easy to change as you're updating the SOP.

that's how I was doing it before I got the document control program.  Very cluttered, but it did it's purpose.  Especially if you have over 130 SOP's like we do, lol.

MASTER LIST TEMPLATE.doc   56.5KB   199 downloadsWe use a Masterlist (template attached) that is controlled by one individual.  Each SOP has a field for the reason for change and a revision number,  This is recorded on the updated masterlist. You can add a field on the masterlist for reason for change if it may help.

We use a log of changes (brief description). . Ours is at the front of the manual , after the index and just simply lists the,  

Document Ref.                Date,                  amends in brief,                     version from &                       version to              in a table .

I have also seen this done as a footer note on each page. This way the amends is specific to that page only and is easier to refer to and the amend is instantly obvious.

Regards

Sharon

We include a Revision Control at the end of every SOP so when you make the changes, you record it in the Revision Control Section, see attached SOP as an example. This was acceptable to our SQF Auditor.