BUSINESS DOCUMENTATION
How much money is your company wasting on "Documentation"?
Properly designed Business and Process Documentation is simple to maintain, bears a low cost of maintenance, and is easily accomplished with a small (sometimes part-time) staff.
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Design_of_Maintainable_Process_Documentation.pdf
Waste commonly occurs because the Policies, Procedures, and Work Instructions more or less "happened" because of business or regulatory need. Because there was no framework or guidance, often the same topic was covered in several places. We can help you locate the waste, eliminate the waste, and set up a process that prevents waste from recurring. We will:
- Work with you to identify and correct the elements that are causing your company:
- to spend more than necessary to maintain documents
- to spend more than necessary to create documents
- to have documents that lack a Corporate Consistency
- to have documents that are missing key elements
- Assist you to evaluate Policies, Corporate Procedures, Department Procedures, and Work Instructions for completeness, overlaps, and consistency
- Establish a Documentation Control Procedure
- State the Authority for each type of Document, and the Role that must be responsible for sign-off at its creation, revision, and Obsolescence
- State the Roles that must review each type of document, and each type of Revision (minor, major, New)
- State the mandatory Document Retention period (unless covered by a separate procedure, in which case that procedure must be referenced)
- State the mandatory interval for review of each type of document for accuracy, completeness, and continued applicability to current business practice and/or regulatory requirements
- State where the record of review (inspection) is to be stored for each document type, and the form that is to be used. (NOTE: This relates to document repository structure.)
- State parameters for Minor ("dot-dot", Major ("dot"), and Full ("X.0") revisions
- Standardize the Document Repository structure
- Establish simple-to-use Document Templates for each type of document
- One-time entry of common items that appear throughout the document (e.g., in headers, footers, and program references)
- "Boilerplate" text
- Required Headings
- Allow the creator or maintainer to focus on the Purpose of the document -- not on the minutia
- Include Revision History, with change description for each
- Train all levels of Documentation and Managers how to ensure that documents are:
- complete
- accurate
- maintainable
Technical documentation
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- Marketing and Technical Articles to publicize a new product
- Hardware and/or Software User manuals that actually work
- Tested on the product to ensure accuracy
- Photos, screen shots, or illustrations as needed
- Supervision of transliteration into Spanish
- Technical manuals
- Electronic installation, operation, field maintenance, depot maintenance
- Technical training manuals
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