3 DOCUMENT CONTROL PRACTICES FOR COMPLEX PROJECTS
ENSURE ACCOUNTABILITY TO PROTECT PROFITS
Disagreements, questions, and even legal disputes become more likely – and more costly – as projects become more complex. With more collaborators and organizations involved, the possibility of miscommunication rises, and with it, the possibility of wasting time researching a resolution. When communication, transmittals, RFIs, and approvals have been handled via email and attachments, definitively answering even a simple question about accountability can involve a complex and time-intensive investigation.
Everyone benefits from clear accountability and quick resolution to questions or disputes. Contractors interested in keeping projects moving swiftly – and protecting their own profits in the process – need to shift their document control practices to ensure that disputes are both rare and easily resolved.
Beyond collaboration, scalability, review, and automation, the modern document controls quickly resolve disputes through superior accountability, transparency, and auditability. It’s one thing to have documents somewhere that teams can dig through and reference in the event of a dispute. It’s something else entirely when field teams can quickly reference a drawing, document, or form and immediately resolve questions about what was approved, by whom, and when – not to mention who downloaded a document and when. The accountability empowered by a robust document control suite helps teams quickly review decisions in the event of an audit or dispute that mere document management cannot support.
Every $1 billion in project value generates between 30,000 and 40,000 documents.[8]
By embracing advanced document control practices, contractors support alignment and accountability. The right document control approach empowers teams to:
- Consolidate, sort, and connect deliverables, creating a logical flow of communication, decisions, and approvals across a document register.
- Deliver information to the right personnel, without delay.
- Ensure that notification of changes is timely and reaches all concerned.
- Confirm precisely who approved what drawings and documents and when through deliberate and diligent records.
- Protect documents against human error with permanent and accessible version controls.
WHAT YOUR DOCUMENT CONTROLLER ALREADY KNOWS
As your document controller would tell you, document management and document control are not the same.
Document management digitally organizes and safely stores your documents. It makes them accessible to those who should have access. Document control pursues organizational efficiency while protecting the integrity and security of documents and their history. In contrast to document management, document control adds several elements, including:
- Quality and consistency, applied through templates, guidelines, and standards.
- Detailed tagging and categorizing to ensure that documents can be found by varied users, and to make turnover seamless.
- Meticulous version control that tracks the changes, comments, and approval a document does through.
- Creating and applying a trackable review and approval process to documents.
- Ensuring security and permission-driven access to documents, information, and tasks.