Document Control User Guide

How a Document Reaches an Operator

ProAlert does not keep a list of "documents for machine 14". It works the question out each time, from what the machine is actually running.

The result is recalculated whenever the context changes, which in practice means at changeover. Start a different product on the same machine and the document list changes with it.

Key Concepts

ProAlert is the system of record for the documents that govern how a product is made: control plans, work instructions, safety data sheets, inspection plans, process flows, PFMEAs (Process Failure Mode and Effects Analysis), drawings and specifications. Document control is the set of screens and rules that decide which of those documents apply right now, put them in front of the person doing the work, record that they were read, and refuse to start a run when a required one is missing.

Where Operators Look

Nobody maintains a list of paperwork per station. The operator's list is derived from what the asset is running at that moment, and it changes by itself at changeover. There are three places it shows up.

On the Schedule HUD

The docs panel lists what governs the current run, grouped by where each document came from: the product, a component, a route step, or the asset. Documents open in a new tab. Anything the signed-in user has not read at the current revision is marked, and a banner counts what is outstanding.

On the phone

The mobile app carries a Docs tab beside Problems, Actions, LSW (Leader Standard Work) and Ideas. On the operator layout it sits in the More overflow. The page shows the same derived list, sectioned into Safety, Quality, Work instructions and Reference, with each row carrying its source. Tapping a row opens the document in the platform viewer. The bill of materials is not drawn as a tree on a phone; the source label on each row is what tells the operator why the document is on the list.

At the machine kiosk

The operator kiosk carries a Controlled Documents panel, below the crew panel and the shift figures. It is always on the screen rather than behind a button, and it refreshes itself every few minutes and whenever the screen is brought back to the front, so a changeover or a mid-shift release reaches the floor without anyone pressing anything.

A line at the top of the panel names what the machine is running, and the route when one applies. Below it the documents are grouped as Work Instructions, Quality, Safety, Reference Documents, and Plant and Company Policies. Each row gives the title, the document type, the version and the revision. Tapping a row opens the document in a new tab.

When there is no job running the panel says so, and explains that documents appear when a job starts. When a job is running but nothing is linked to the product, it says that instead. If it cannot reach the server it says the documents could not be loaded and to check the connection, rather than showing an empty list that could be mistaken for "nothing required".

Knowing You Owe a Review

Being told at the moment you try to start a run that you have unread paperwork is too late. ProAlert therefore carries the count with you, so you can clear it before it costs anybody a minute of production.

On the web

A document icon sits in the top navigation bar of every page, next to the notification bell, carrying an amber number. Hovering over it reads Documents Awaiting Your Review. When you owe nothing the icon is not shown at all, so its presence is the message.

Clicking it drops down a list grouped by asset and product, each row giving the document title, its type, and its version and revision. Clicking a row opens the document in a new tab. The count refreshes every few minutes and when you return to the tab.

On the phone

The mobile app shows an amber pill on the title bar of whatever page you are on, reading 5 to review, or whatever the number happens to be. Tapping it opens the Docs page. When you owe nothing the pill disappears and the page shows its own title again.

The Docs tab itself also carries the number in its label, as Docs (5). On the operator layout that tab sits inside the More overflow, so the tab label alone was several taps out of sight. The title bar pill is there so the number is visible wherever you are working.

If the phone has no asset configured, opening Docs from the pill still shows you something useful: the app loads the first asset you actually owe documents on, rather than reporting that it has no production context.

Uploading and Linking

ProAlert does not change how you author documents. Word, Excel, PDF and CAD stay where they are. ProAlert provides the controlled storage, the lifecycle, the linking and the point-of-use access around them. Existing documentation can typically be imported without re-authoring, though revision metadata, an approval baseline and the links that decide where it appears still have to be set as part of bringing it under control.

Open Quality → Document Links for the plant-wide index: every link in one filterable list, with the thing it governs named rather than shown as an id, and an unlink control. Links can also be created from the detail page of the record itself.

Only one approved document of a given type can apply to a given context. One Control Plan for a product, not three. The database enforces this rather than trusting the screen, so an attempt to approve a second one is refused rather than quietly accepted. That constraint is the whole reason an operator never has to choose between two documents. To replace a control plan, use New revision and release its replacement: the handover retires the old document and transfers its links, so you never have two approved documents of the same type governing the same thing at once.

Document Lifecycle

A status change propagates to every link the document has, immediately. Approving a document promotes its links; obsoleting it releases the context slot it occupied.

Approval and Separation of Duties

Whether an upload lands as a draft or goes live immediately is set per document type. Types marked as requiring approval land in DRAFT and wait. Approvals are worked from CMMS → Document approvals.

Where releasing happens

CMMS → Document approvals is the release queue: what is waiting on a decision, what is still in draft, and what has been released recently. Approve records who released the document, when, and any notes; those are the fields the audit page reads. Send back to draft returns it to the author. Retire takes a superseded document out of service, which frees its context slot for the replacement.

Which documents go through review

The document type decides, and an administrator sets it in CMMS → Document control settings. A type flagged Requires approval arrives as a draft and reaches nobody until it is released. The shipped types that require it are Control Plan, Work Instruction, PFMEA, Inspection Plan, Process Flow, Specification Sheet and SDS (Safety Data Sheet). Types that do not, such as Manual, are usable the moment they are uploaded, which is what you want for a vendor manual or a photograph on a work order. The same screen sets which types block a production run.

Approving requires a signed-in user with a real identity on file. An approval that cannot be attributed to a person is refused outright rather than recorded against a system account.

Revisions

The approval-and-handover workflow below applies to document types with Requires approval enabled. New revision, on any released document in CMMS → Document approvals, issues the next revision: upload the new file, and the revision letter is suggested for you. The new revision keeps the title, the type and the acknowledgement setting of the one it replaces, and records what it supersedes, so the chain back through every earlier revision stays intact.

Until it is released, nothing changes on the floor. The current revision keeps governing production. The moment the new one is released, the old one is retired and everything it governed moves across in a single step, so there is never a window where a product has no control plan. Doing that by hand has two halves, and forgetting either one fails quietly: leave the old one linked and the new one cannot be linked at all; unlink it early and the next run is blocked for a missing document.

A revision is a new document. If it requires acknowledgement, each person using it must acknowledge the released revision; their acknowledgement of its predecessor does not carry forward. Keep the released file unchanged and use the revision workflow when its controlled content changes.

The ordering in step one is not cosmetic. Two approved documents of the same type cannot share a context, so the predecessor has to step down before the successor can step up.

Acknowledgement

A document flagged Requires Acknowledgement asks every operator to confirm they have read the current revision. That flag is set per document, not per document type, so two work instructions can be treated differently: the one that governs the job is acknowledged, a reference copy kept beside it need not be. Work instructions and control plans are the usual candidates; a safety data sheet kept for reference usually is not.

• An acknowledgement records the user, the document, the exact version and revision, and the time.
• Bumping the version or the revision makes every prior acknowledgement stale, and the document is prompted for again.
• Acknowledging a document once covers it everywhere it appears, because the evidence is about content, not about which link led the operator to it.
• Acknowledging twice is harmless; the second call is idempotent.

Because the record is pinned to a version and revision, a revision bump makes every earlier acknowledgement stale by definition and re-prompts everyone.

Organisation-Wide Documents

Some documents belong to the company or the plant rather than to a part: a safety policy, a quality manual, a code of conduct. Attach these to a node of the organisation, the company, a plant, an area or a cell, from that node's own page, and they reach everything beneath it. A policy on the plant is available at every cell inside it, so nobody has to attach it to each machine.

They appear in their own section on the operator's panel, on the Schedule HUD and on the phone, labelled with the node they came from, so a corporate policy is distinguishable from a plant one at a glance. They are kept separate from the work instructions on purpose: a quality manual sitting among the operating documents is noise, and a section can be skipped by someone who does not need it. A policy prompts for acknowledgement only if it is flagged for it, exactly like any other document.

The Production Start Gate

Starting a run checks two different things, with deliberately different weights.

Configuring what is required

• Per document type. Required for production start on the document type is the plant-wide default. It ships on for Control Plan and Work Instruction and off for everything else.
• Per product. A product-level override can add a requirement (an inspection plan on a safety-critical part) or remove one where the default does not fit.

Both the web Schedule HUD and the phone pre-check readiness before offering the start button, and show what is missing. The pre-check is advisory: the button stays live and the server decides, because a client that has been open for an hour is not a trustworthy judge of what is approved right now.

Audit Mode

Quality → Document Audit answers an auditor's questions about one product on one asset, on one page: what governs it, at which revision, who approved it and when, and who has acknowledged it. Acknowledgements against an older revision are shown as such, so "everyone signed for it" and "everyone signed for this revision" cannot be confused with one another.

The page shows the current state. Reconstructing what governed a product on a date in the past needs a document version-history table that ProAlert does not have yet; the acknowledgement rows are the genuine history available today, because each one pins the version and revision that person saw.

Standards on Leader Standard Work and Tiered Meetings

Two daily-management routines are themselves performed to a written standard, and both carry a Governed by card listing the controlled documents they run to.

• Leader standard work routines. Link the gemba walk standard on the routine editor. The card is repeated read-only on the execution page, so a leader mid-walk can open the standard without leaving the checklist.
• Tiered meetings. Link the tier board standard, the escalation procedure or the meeting charter. The card sits above the agenda, because the document governs what the agenda is for.

Only approved documents are offered, and removing one deactivates the link rather than erasing it, so an auditor can still see what was claimed to govern the routine last quarter.

Review Signals

ProAlert quietly collects hints that a controlled document may no longer match reality. Three events produce one today:

• a scrap threshold crossing, pointing at the control plan for the product being run;
• a nonconformance raised against a product or asset, pointing at the same;
• a repeat failure on an asset inside the detection window, pointing at the maintenance procedure.

Roles and Access Control

Operators view the current approved documentation for the work in progress and acknowledge the revisions they are required to read. A supervisor gets visibility on top of that: who has acknowledged the current revision and who has not, which is what compliance follow-up actually needs. Who can reach each screen is set by role:

Best Practices

• Link at the product, not at the asset, unless the document really follows the machine. A control plan linked to five presses is five things to update; linked to the product it is one.
• Put machine differences inside the work instruction. If a section has to say "on press 2, index the fixture first", say it there.
• Turn on acknowledgement for the documents an operator has to have read, and leave it off for reference material. A prompt that appears for everything is a prompt nobody reads.
• Use New revision when controlled content changes. Release the replacement through the approval queue so the old file, links and acknowledgement history remain traceable.
• Adopt the start gate in two steps. Run with warnings first and watch what the plant is actually missing, then turn on Require document review before start per asset once the gaps are closed.
• Obsolete, do not delete. A deleted document takes its history with it; an obsolete one leaves the record intact and stops governing.

Variation Between Machines

When the same product runs on different equipment, machine quirks, tooling notes and setup differences are captured inside the controlled document itself. ProAlert does not support appendix-style amendments or asset-specific overrides held as separate metadata.

This is a deliberate design decision rather than a limitation. Appendix-style addenda introduce drift, and they create real ambiguity at audit about which combination of documents was in effect at a given moment. One controlled document per process variant, approved as a unit, is the conservative choice.

Troubleshooting