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Re: Question: To allow printing or to not allow printing...
Subject:Re: Question: To allow printing or to not allow printing... From:R2 Innovations <R2innovations -at- MYNA -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 30 Oct 1997 22:28:02 +0000
James Bauman wrote:
> Our department will be putting documents online (our users for
> years have consulted paper documentation), and we are concerned that
> most users will print most or all of the online documents. That
> would defeat one big benefit of having the documents online, of course.
Jim,
*****************************************************************
How are you doing big guy??
At AlliedSignal Aerospace Canada, we are putting our company policies
and procedures online, especially those supporting our ISO 9001
registration. This became necessary as the job of controlling all
updates as well as retrieving and destroying all superseded materials had
become a nightmare of the highest order. Believe me, online is the
only way to go.
Our audience is the employee working at the company -- these
documents do not go outside to our customers. The requirement is for
the employee to be able to access a specific procedure within a
specific manual quickly and efficiently -- usually to refresh the
memory as to has to exactly what be dome to complete a specific task
(i.e., complete an expense report). Once the instructions have been
read, the person exits the online system and gets on with the job.
We do allow the users to print the material if they so choose, but a
disclaimer is placed in the header of all printouts that the material
is for reference use only, the authority is the online version of the
documentation (which might have changed since they printed out the
copy they have used). This has been found acceptable by our ISO
auditors.
Ralph E. Robinson
Author of the book "Documenting ISO 9000: Guidelines for
Compliant Documentation" available through R2 Innovations
in Mississuaga, Ontario.
