What, When, Who, Why

I received a telephone call from Spain..... asking for help in obtaining a PCB.....

A small vessel - a trawler - was designed and built in Port Glasgow, Scotland some time in the 1960's

Documents and information etc which you create:

• Which may be sent to third parties
  • Technical Documents under transmittal - Drg's, BOQ's, etc etc
  • Technical Queries or RFI's
  • Letters etc - Correspondence - may be by email.
  • Minutes of Meetings
• Which are kept and used internally
  • Record of Happenings - or Diary
  • Time Allocation Sheets (People, Plant, etc)
  • Contemporaneous Notes
• Which are used for running the job
  • Event Schedules
  • Task Lists
  • Supplier Document Requirement Scheduling
• Which are used for indexing either "at the time" or later
  • Groups - such as Tasks
  • Keywords

Capturing Information "As it happens" is by far and away the easiest way, but:

• This means that staff have to be "proactive" and do it as part of their job.
  • Document controllers are the key - everything must pass through them
  • Often beaten by the "its in my brief case and I need it" syndrome.
• Senior staff must be involved in indexing - registration is a document control function.
  • Allocation of drawings to Work Packages or Tasks
  • Allocation of a letter to a "Subject" (the file where it resides if paper)
  • Copies have to be made for "operational purposes" as the master is now "filed"
    • On completion of use, copies of documents should be destroyed
    • Electronically of course, the "master" can also be used operationally.
• Staff cannot "leave things", otherwise the action becomes "in arrears".
  • No holidays for Document Controllers
  • The necessary discipline must be maintained.

Document controllers are very necessary as they provide:

• A single (contractual) point for receipt of all project mail - of whatever type, and however it arrives
• On a very large job, there may need to be a small team of document controllers.
• A single entity which is responsible for all the information and its integrity
• They may need specialist skills to operate document control software
• Document Controllers are at the bottom of the organisation - its a very very boring job.
• They need instruction as to what to do - e.g. which documents to issue to which people, when and why.
• There is therefore a constant interaction with senior members of the project team.
• The information that they generate can be used for other purposes - e.g. an SDRS

Records are mandatory under the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 1994
The following leaflets are linked from the Health & Safety Executive's web site at http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/conindex.htm

• The role of the client
• The role of the planning supervisor
• The role of the Designer
• The pre-tender stage health and safety plan
• The Health and Safety Plan during the construction phase
• The Health and Safety file
  • As Built Documents
  • Operations & Maintenance Manuals