Control of Revision History
I have two programs, that I maintain (ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 22000). I have been trying to figure out a simpler way to deal with revisions as some of the documents my company uses have more pages worth of revisions than work instructions. I wanted to get the revisions explanation off the work instruction/SOP and keep it only in the document register, keeping only the last two reasons for change. If I do this am I still in compliance. the documents will have this header:
Level III Standard Operating Procedures: VERSION: A
Effective Date:
Review Date:
Page #:
1of 1
Department Responsible:
Approved by:
and my document register will have this:
Document Number Description Status Document Date Last Document Revision Last Review Date Reason for Change Location of Document
What I understand from your question is.....
You want to maintain history of revisions in separate register. Currently it is being maintained on the same document.
To my experience the best practice is to maintain the revision history separately. It should not be a part of document under use because most of the time the document user have nothing to with that history. another best practice is to make that history available in hard copy or soft copy to the concerned personnel so that if any one want to see what changes are applied since its first release then it can be reviewed easily.
Hi Laura,
I'm not sure on ISO requirements, hopefully a member can answer in relation to that. I have a master document controls list which lists the current issues of documents. As for revision history, I have a table on each document which summarises date of issue change and changes. Sometimes this does result in the revisions being longer than the actual document, but for hard copies I'd only print the 'instructions'. I.e. my knife register is 1 page, but has several pages of revisions following many changes in staff over the years, but I'd only print the first page, which has the current issue and date in a footer at the bottom. If anyone wanted to see the revision history for whatever reason, they can see it on the electronic document, or we can print all pages. BRC are happy with this.
Our company participates in the SQF program but a Revision log is necessary for our program as well. The header on every one of our controlled documents includes the most recent issue date and a "supersedes" date. Separately, we have an excel sheet for all changes and revisions that is easy to maintain and print out for a binder to be reviewed by an auditor the sections are set up as such:
Master Document Revision Log
Date Updated | Code / Section | SQF Code Element / Title of Document | Changes Made to Document
Thanks for the input, I am new to this company and some of their revisions go back almost 20 yrs, is it necessary to keep all of these if I am revamping the program?
Best to check with ISO..I asked my colleague who's worked under ISO for ages at PP and she said they kept ALL revisions.............but that may just be because the requirement isn't clear???? Seems a bit much no?