ISO refers to the International Organization for Standardization. Various types of industries create specific standards for numbering their documents, such as testing companies, electronics and electrical engineering industries and economic cooperation and development endeavors. These numbering standards help international organizations communicate with each other despite language barriers.
Company Documentation Structure
Companies rely on documentation structure to ensure that their companies operate efficiently and in an organized manner. Various organizations number their documents in a standardized way so that they can more easily locate and reference these documents. When a company refers someone to a document, they often identify a specific number that will direct that individual to the document. Over time, these numerical indicators can become standardized, even though the numbering systems were once set up arbitrarily.
Number Complexity
Some companies number their documents with complex numbers. These numbers make the company seem larger than it really is and makes the projects that the company is involved in seem complex and important, according to Quality Works. However, having long and complex numbers makes these numbers more difficult to remember. Companies can determine the length of their document numbers based on the number of documents that the company generally creates. For example, a company that produces 250 documents a year does not need numbers that get into the millions. However, the other extreme involves companies predicting that they will only need a certain number of documents and then designing a numbering system that does not fit their needs in the future when their company changes and they end up producing more documents than they anticipated. Number Associations
Companies can help improve organization by associating one of the numbers with a specific document type. For example, all documents beginning with 1 might refer to financial documents, while numbers that begin with 2 are related to employee documents. Therefore, when sifting through documents, companies can go immediately to documents that start with a certain number, cutting down the search process.
Types of Documents
Numbering standards that are approved through census procedures are called amendments. Technical corrigendums are documents that were corrected after containing incorrect information. Numbering Evaluation
When developing a numbering system, management must develop standards so that employees know how to create and number documents. If management does not standardize numbering, employees might number documents in a way that confuses other employees and those outside the company. The company must determine how new documents are created and updated, who is required to review and sign off the new documents, how the company eliminates unwanted documents,