Periodic review

A standard operating procedure (SOP) ought to be considered a living document that needs to remain current to be useful. It is critical to keep information up to date. Whenever things change – like procedures, equipment and regulations – SOPs should be reviewed, updated and re-approved.

“Processes change all the time and companies don’t always remember to update their SOPs to reflect these changes,” says Lillian Erickson, global quality manager, MasterControl (www.mastercontrol.com), a provider of quality and compliance software solutions and services. “Eventually, process drift can lead to SOPs being outdated. When new employees train on outdated SOPs, consistency in work is not achieved and risk is introduced into the process.”

“Reviewing SOPs is a great opportunity to look for process improvements and ask questions like: How could we streamline this task, process or activity?” adds Teresa Tarwater, vice president, marketing, Comprose (www.comprose.com), a resource for organizations that want to streamline and standardize operating procedures and best practices. “If the focus is on making things better, rather than pushing paper around, updating your SOPs can be a tremendous catalyst for ongoing improvement.” 

Companies that successfully use SOPs say the review process should not be overly cumbersome or it can discourage timely review. Furthermore, they advise systematically reviewing SOPs on a periodic basis – every one to two years, for example – to ensure they remain current and suitable, or to determine whether an SOP is no longer needed.

REVISION PROCESS

When a revision to an SOP is made – after undergoing the approval and sign off process, the date of the revision should be noted, along with those involved in the revision. The revised SOP then needs to be introduced to the workforce.

Whenever an SOP supersedes one or more SOPs, a best practice is to link them together in order to always remain aware of the changes and how the SOP evolved historically, say officials with IntelliSOP (www.intellisop.com), a company that provides its smart SOP Management System.

“In the case of an SOP describing a process that is no longer followed, it should be retracted from the current file and archived,” they suggest. “Date and details of the withdrawal should be documented, and the retracted SOP should be archived. The goal here is to minimize the risk of the use of outdated SOPs.”