Zen and the Art of Losing Things

Procedures get created for the damndest reasons. But then, the ways in which things can go wrong are really quite amazingly varied.

This morning's panic happened over a batch record that was needed by Production. My personal involvement in the handling of batch records stops once I've issued the thing, and doesn't start up again until my Jedi Master has released the batch and I need to trend the details. I like to get freshly issued batch records out of my hands as quickly as possible - it is far too easy for me to forget something if I don't.

The batch record in question needed some details added by Admin, and QC had passed it on to them to have said details added. QC promptly forgot about it, expecting it to be passed back in the appropriate amount of time.

Unfortunately, the person who usually deals with such things wasn't there, and it wound up on the desk of somebody else entirely, who signed his bit, and left it in his office, fully expecting somebody to come looking for it.

Somebody did come looking for it. This morning, in a blind panic, because it wasn't where it was supposed to be.

This is why procedures are individually tailored, not just to each company, but also to each individual set of employees, and need to be revised periodically. That way, odd-looking procedures can be trimmed when they are no longer required.