A Document Control System: What Is It?
Managing documents at every stage of their lifecycle—from creation to distribution and storage—is done via the use of document control systems. A document control system automates labor-intensive, paper-based procedures, saving your company money on overhead and time.
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How Can a Document Control System Assist with Regulated Product Documentation?
A document control system gives companies access to all the records and paperwork required to demonstrate compliance in highly regulated sectors. You can make sure that your paperwork is accurate, traceable, well-organized, reportable, and compliant with all applicable laws and regulations with the use of document control. Proof of the reliability, reproducibility, repeatability, safety, and efficacy of your company’s procedures must be provided for regulated items. You can comprehend what has to be done, when it needs to be done, and how it needs to be done with the right paperwork.
Document control systems are important in environments that are regulated.
#1: Strict Access Control to Private Records
Security lapses pose a major danger in highly regulated businesses, and a password-protected spreadsheet is unable to keep prying eyes at bay. To reduce the chance of information leakage, you may manage who has access to certain files by using a document management system. This way, only authorized users can read, modify, and remove documents.
#2: Increased Adherence
When it comes to electronic signatures and passwords, document control can help you comply with regulatory and quality systems (QS) within the FDA, ISO, EU, and more. The FDA and other regulatory bodies may issue warning letters to ineffective document control systems. You may reduce the likelihood of incomplete paperwork, incorrect forms with signatures, and infrequent audit trails by implementing an efficient document control system.
#3: Preserve Private Information
Identity and access management is greatly aided by document control systems, which shield private papers from prying eyes. By making access easier when needed, they may assist authorized parties in finding, searching, and retrieving active and archived records more rapidly. Compared to paper-based systems, document management solutions provide an excellent user experience (UX) by offering transparency and information control, which may reduce regulatory risks and boost productivity.
#4. Better Cooperation
Paper-based methods of document control greatly slowed down the evaluation of papers in highly competitive businesses. A scattered, more productive, connected, and aligned workforce can now collaborate in real-time with ease using cloud-based document management systems (DMS) for document control systems that are easily accessible from desktop or mobile devices.
#5: Enhanced Quality Control
In highly regulated sectors, quality management systems play a critical role in maintaining compliance and fostering a culture of quality. Along with adherence to cGMP for SOPs, organizational policy, and other crucial quality procedures, document control may boost productivity with better processes for approval, document storage, and document access.
#6: Make Up for Lost Time
Paper-based records are readily misplaced, stolen, or destroyed, posing serious threats to efficient business continuity. Document controls stop the erosion of institutional knowledge by giving you a dedicated location to store crucial papers, records, and reports. As a result, a business may bounce back from data security concerns fast.
#7: Expandability
Significant business advantages that the scalable document control system can provide include:
Give your business flexibility by being able to view and modify documents.
Boost business valuation with a quality-driven culture and an efficient document control system.
Provide transparent and efficient systems that can help people at all organizational levels understand how things function.
The distinction between DMS and Document Control System
The part of document management that deals with security and credibility is the document control system. This maintains track of both your documents’ most recent and earlier iterations. In addition, the document control procedure includes:
Maintaining document security
Improving version control for documents
Evaluating written materials
Establishing and upholding an approval procedure
Managing the submission of documents
These can assist companies in keeping track of the papers they have previously utilized and the individuals who have accessed them. For companies of all sizes, document control is all about automating document handling and efficiently managing all of your important papers.
Document management, which entails digitizing paper documents and storing, authenticating, indexing, and updating them, has become a crucial component of contemporary enterprises. These days, digitizing paper documents and keeping up a system for all future papers are the top priorities for every organization.
One feature of a document that ensures the security of the documents is a controlled document; document handling systems have made document controlling very simple.