As mentioned in ISO 9001 clause 4.2.1 notes, a document is information that is written or recorded on some medium such as paper or computer. A document may specify requirements (e.g. a drawing or technical specification); provide direction (e.g. quality plan); or show results or evidence of activities performed (e.g. records).

The Control of Documents procedure of Rockpower includes documents in our QMS as per ISO 9001 Clause 4.2.1. All documents that we determine under clause 4.2.1 to be needed for our QMS processes must be controlled. This procedure provides requirements on how these documents must be controlled. Documents outside the QMS need not be subject to these controls.

For Control of Documents, Rockpower have a documented procedure. Our procedure defined responsibility for and description of the controls required by ISO 9001 Clause 4.2.3 a - 4.2.3g; methods to measure process document control performance; and continual improvement of the document control process.

Our procedure specifically addresses each of the control requirements, in terms of who, what when, where and how as applicable. Our procedure also address new and old as well as internal and external documents used by the QMS.

All new QMS documentation will be approved prior to issue. Some degree of checking, examination or assessment is inherent in ‘approval for adequacy’. Rockpower will periodically determine if any updating or revisions of any QMS documentation is needed, and if they are changed, they must be re-approved for adequacy.

The frequency of this review, responsibility and method is defined in our procedure. This will be determined by events within our organization and how mature or recent our QMS is. We will review if our documents have been changed in due time, while the nature of our business has changed significantly.

Identify changes made to documents so users know exactly what has changed. There are many ways of doing this on printed as well as computerized documents. Our procedure already covered how this is done.

Our procedure also mentioned a method for revision control such as a revision log and master-list of documents which identifies the current revision status.