The main company I work for is a small manufacturer, ad still does EVERYTHING via paper. All our documentation (drawings, procedures, ECN’s etc…) are paper based. Yes we create a lot of them them electronically (CAD, Word, Excel, etc…), but our Quality Systems state that the printed hard copy is the official master.
For example, we fill out ECN’s by hand, and hand pass them around the office for each person to sign off. Then they get filed away in a folder with copies residing the folder of the drawings the affected.
Another is, that the drawings all reside in the filing cabinets in the Document Control managers office. But the QA guy has to go in and out several times a day, to fetch files required for incoming inspection.
I didn’t start this topic looking for answers. It just becomes WAY more obvious how much interpersonal interactions exist with our current paper systems.
Even if we had filing cabinets centrally located, people still have to handle the same papers, and folders. Something that is hard to do from 6 feet away.