Is All Paper Waste Paper?

I would hate to do without toilet paper...but then I guess it too could be defined as "waste paper"

I do believe there is too much paper on the shop floor. Workers regard the paper as disposable because it can be so easily and quickly reproduced; no need to save the paper; just toss it.

There is a much better reason to keep paper. revisions can be made to the original and unless the latest changes are gotten by the worker, bad things can happen. This used to be a common problem when I worked in the shipbuilding industry. Workers would be working to old revisions of a drawing, both on the shop floor and in the design room.

Is there too much paper? Yes. Can it be eliminated completely? No.

A good document control system prevents engineers/designers from working on old drawings - not difficult.

One can try to track the physical destination of all drawings, and try to ensure that all old copies are withdrawn before replacing with revisions, and try to capture all the handwritten field revisions that have already been installed--but, try ≠ succeed. Are you sure this is easy?

With the system the office used, when you downloaded a drawing you had two methods.

1) For modification and the revision level was automatically bumped up - that required departments signing off to acknowledge and approve the revision.

2) For use and no modifications were possible.

Make a mistake and you spent the next hour or two getting signatures to get the IT department to correct the revision level.

Does nothing for the field at all but the office can be controlled.

A good document control system prevents engineers/designers from working on old drawings - not difficult.

That's the key word...GOOD. There are still many companies that work from paper originals that are always in the process of being revised. In the shipbuilding industry especially, large size drawings are used in the field by many people, so multiple sets of drawings are needed. These are not letter size computer printouts, but drawings that measure 30x40 and up to 12 ft long. There could be as many as 50 sets of multi-sheet drawings in circulation. That's a lot of paper and by the time the drawing has been revised and distributed, parts have been made and construction has proceeded under an old revision. It is not an easy task. It's usually only when a major change is eminent, does the word get out to stop work, words that no one likes to hear as it results in high costs requiring rescheduling and reassignment of workers to other tasks, not always an easy task. In companies with a small work force, distribution of the latest information is certainly a much easier job. Companies with massive work forces; well you can see the problem there.

I still like paper money!