It is essential that all personnel involved in an engineering construction project work to the same revision of the prints and diagrams applicable to the equipment and processes involved, and to the same procedures applicable to the task. For example, the drawings in the package of work instructions approved by the maintenance department must be the same revision as the drawings used during the preparation of the clearance and by the operators in the control room. It follows that the exact same revision of the drawings must be used by everyone involved in the execution of the clearance; therefore, an approved and controlled process must be in place to designate groups and their locations needing controlled documents, and an approved method must be in place to keep all of those documents consistent with the current design of the plant, and with each other. This process is called Document Control. Document control is essential to configuration management.

Note that under the function of management identified as “control”, we could list configuration control and document control. And, we could list procurement control, record control, design control, and other essential control activities. If we listed all of these topics and how they were performed, we would have created a Quality Assurance Program (Policy Manual and descriptive procedures). Others may call this Total Quality Control. Regardless of what it is named, managers plan, organize, lead, and control.

Find at least four references that address configuration or document control. Write a paper which outlines how you believe configuration control is important when constructing a building or assembling a product. Outline whether you consider configuration control important or not important and why you believe this to be true.

Your total response will be a minimum of 1200 words typed following APA format and using Times New Roman Font, Font size 12, double spaced.

You will upload your response to this assignment in Canvas. Note this assignment will not be available after March 4th at the end of the business day. If you miss the assignment submittal time that will be too bad as this is a hard stop for submittal just as it would be at work.

A reference to start with is http://www.davebaldwinconsulting.com/article_principles_document_control.html (Links to an external site.)

There are many references, this one is convenient.