Engineering Document Retention Part 2

[natebott]

I know of the legal aspects of document retention, but I am looking for a discussion starting point. What are some specific document retention rules that you currently use as standard for your company? Especially as they relate to engineering change notices and calculations/analysis data. Time frames would be greatly appreciated, and no feet held to any fire. Just want some rough data to discuss.

Thank you

 

[KENAT]

There is talk of a one year rule here. Keep on site for one year then either scrap or send to archives, which is almost the same thing except you get a bill each month for the privilidge.

In defense/aerospace in the UK we were almost the opposite, very little got thrown away. Wasn't always catalouged well enough to find it, but hey.

KENAT,

Have you reminded yourself of faq731-376 recently, or taken a look at posting policies:

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

What is Engineering anyway: faq1088-1484

 

[IceStationZebra]

My company keeps anything they can use to defend lawsuits for 5yrs past the last one being manufactured. Like Kenat, I don't think they are well organized but that is better than getting thrown under a bus.

ISZ

 

[Ron]

For non-licensed activity, I'm not sure there's anything statutory that requires you to retain anything; however, common sense would tell you to retain records for some period of time. For mechanical products that might be some percentage of its expected life (25%??), or you might check with your insurance company...they might have a requirement that they want.

For licensed activity, most states have statutes that apply to the retention of engineering documents. In my home state, we are required to maintain a signed and sealed original for at least 3 years; however, the statue of repose for architects, engineers, and contractors in this state is 10 years, so it would be prudent to maintain at least an electronic copy for that length of time.

 

[Ron]

Also..you might want to post this in one of the "soft" forums such as "Engineer Business Practices and Issues" rather than here in a technical forum. Site management frowns on posting non-technical topics in technical forums.

 

[hydtools]

The company I worked for included product design and design control engineering documents under perpetual records, keep forever. From time to time we would digitize for archival, yet retrivable, records.

Ted

 

[GregLocock]

In automotive there are three schools of thought I have come across

1) burn everything immediately

2) store the selected highlights of everything in a formal process for a couple of decades

3) what is document retention?

I have seen no evidence that 1 is any less successful in court than 2, oddly. 3 gets very expensive. I'd have thought 1 would get expensive in court as the prosecution would have to 'reverse engineer' the missing data, but in practice that doesn't seem to happen.



Cheers

Greg Locock

SIGlease see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[KENAT]

Thinking about it, for major projects in defence/aerospace the most important stress calculations were actually formatted into a "Type Record "(for sub component assy's) and "Structural Design Records" (for top level assy's). These were formal documents that were not just 'kept' but actually maintained and would get updated now and then as required. These would be kept active for the life of the product, that is it's service life not just till we stopped making new ones. Even after it went out of service it probably got stored for a fair few years after that.

KENAT,

Have you reminded yourself of faq731-376 recently, or taken a look at posting policies:

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

What is Engineering anyway: faq1088-1484

 

[vpl]

For nuclear applications in the US, there are specific document retention lengths spelled out in the Code of Federal Regulations. They can vary from none for "non-safety" components to over 60 years for items that are called "safety-related."

Patricia Lougheed

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"Somebody on this Internet forum said it was ok" is not a sufficient explanation when responding to a lawsuit.

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