Are photocopies of controlled forms permitted?

What is your standard regarding photocopying of controlled forms by production staff? Permitted or not? 

I've always operated with the practice of not permitting photocopies and instead either providing print outs myself or giving access to production staff to print their own from an electronic copy that is maintained by QA to and not able to be edited by production staff.

Our current SOPs say no photocopies but I am receiving push back. 

I am asuming your have a documented control policy (such as required by GFSI scheme SQF) for documents, records, logs, etc.

Just show that to whoever wants a photo-copy - sorry, our policy says blah blah blah.  That should do it.

And that is what we have.

We permitted it in my first QA role at an SQF facility.  We had a file cabinet in one of our rooms prefilled with all of the forms that were necessary for production and sanitation.  The original copies were kept in a notebook in plastic sleeves for employees to photocopy from the original if they needed to refill the file cabinet, no auditors gave pushback on it.  Having the forms accessible was preferred, and keeping copies in that centralized spot allowed for easy replacement when forms were updated, and we could destroy old versions to prevent the wrong forms being used.

If you do permit photocopies of the forms, make sure your SOP describes it as permissible.  

Thanks!

Our SOP currently states -- in bold and underlined! -- that as part of our SQF requirement adherence that photocopies are not permitted, but I am being told I am being unreasonable and difficult. 

Part of my issue with photocopying is that they are photocopying copies, and cutting off the form number, title, some columns, etc. 

When I first started here there were multiple versions of a number of forms in circulation because people were making photocopies from reserves of documents they had hidden in various places.  That had to stop right away.

I now make sure there are plenty of copies of the current versions available at 2-3 monitored locations.   When updates occur the old ones get destroyed and if anyone turns in an old version more than a day after that they get talked to and any hidden reserves are tracked down and destroyed.

Taking away the incentive and opportunity are important.  Provide abundant current copies, and monitor what is turned in.

One additional reason maintaining the printing of copies is important for us is because the lazy photocopies usually only copy the front of the document, and in many cases our instructions, escalation procedures, and critical limits are on the back.  I don't want anyone to use the excuse they didn't know what or how was correct -- they always have a copy of the guidance materials on every form.

I keep a MASTER BINDER of all forms, separated by department

I write COPY in highlighter (yellow will not photocopy)

It is MY responsibility to keep the binder up to date

It is the supervisors responsibility to make copies from the master

No issue, no push back, no other option

I refused copies of copies  (they will learn fast)

Allow only printed copy. Avoid photocopy.

I have a shared documents folder set up that they can open and print locked pdf's of the stuff they need.

Of course few do, and just come to me and ask for a new stack of forms usually.   Because why do it yourself when you can bug me, right?   lol.

I refused copies of copies  (they will learn fast)

LOVE that!  Perfect answer to your problem.