What are the best practices for reviewing and approving engineering documentation in a team environment?

1 Document types and formats

The first step to ensure quality engineering documentation is to define the types and formats of the documents that you need to produce for your project. Depending on the scope, complexity, and nature of your project, you may need to create different types of documents, such as design briefs, specifications, drawings, calculations, reports, manuals, and test plans. Each document type should have a clear purpose, audience, and structure, and follow a consistent format that complies with the relevant standards and conventions. You should also consider the format of your documents, such as whether they are digital or physical, editable or read-only, and how they are stored and accessed.

2 Document templates and guidelines

To facilitate the creation and review of engineering documentation, it is advisable to use document templates and guidelines that provide a common framework and style for your team. Document templates and guidelines can help you save time, avoid errors, and ensure consistency across your documents. They can also help you communicate your design intent, assumptions, and rationale more effectively to your reviewers and approvers. You should create or adopt document templates and guidelines that suit your project requirements, and update them as needed to reflect any changes or feedback.

3 Document review cycles and roles

Another key aspect of quality engineering documentation is to establish a regular and systematic document review cycle and assign clear roles and responsibilities to your team members. Document review is the process of checking and verifying the accuracy, completeness, clarity, and compliance of your documents before they are approved and released. A document review cycle should include multiple stages, such as peer review, technical review, managerial review, and client review, depending on the type and level of your documents. You should also define the roles and expectations of your reviewers, such as who can review, comment, edit, or approve your documents, and how they should provide feedback.

5 Document tools and software

The last but not least practice for quality engineering documentation is to use the right tools and software that can support and enhance your document creation, review, and approval processes. There are many tools and software available that can help you create, edit, format, store, share, and manage your documents, such as word processors, spreadsheets, CAD programs, PDF editors, document management systems, and collaboration platforms. You should choose the tools and software that best suit your project needs, preferences, and budget, and ensure that they are compatible, reliable, and secure.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?