BN-W-U011 Processing of Comments and Required Actions

Table of Content

1. Purpose
2. General
3. Responsibilities
4. Instruction
5. References
6. Attachments

1. Purpose

This Work Instruction covers the activities required to assure that Company internal comments, as well as comments received from outside Company, on formal documents and correspondence produced by Company, are correctly and completely processed.

2. General

Such documents and correspondence includes, but are not limited to the following:

• Specifications
• Requisitions
• Drawings and Calculations
• Minutes of Meetings
• Bid Tabulations
• Reports
• Procedures

This Work Instruction further covers the methods of monitoring and ensuring completion of required actions to be taken by Company as requested, and/or demanded by an outside body (e.g. Client, Authorities) by means of telex, letter and/or Minutes of Meetings.

2.1 Definitions

Informal Document: An unauthorized document (e.g. notes for private use only, rough draft, in development).

Formal Document: An authorized document.

Controlled Document: A document which is controlled in accordance with this procedure (and clause 4.5 of ISO 9001:87).

Authorized: Confirmed by (e.g. originator, checker and approver).

Review: Global verification to obtain confidence.

Check: Detailed verification to obtain certainty.

Approved: Authorized for issue (e.g. for information, for comments or released for design/purchase/construction).

Certified: The status of a document for which qualified engineers formally attest by signature, that the document fulfills the requirements.

Document Package: A group of documents, belonging together.

Document Shipment: (A combination of) documents sent together to an outside location.

Transmittal: A transport document identifying accompanying documents with in many cases an option to acknowledge proper receipt by signing and returning a copy.

Comment Slip: A letter to be returned with/without comments.

Covering Letter: An accompanying document to introduce the document to the recipient.

Originator (Author): The employee nominated to produce a certain project document and/or tasks.

3. Responsibilities

The Project Director/Manager is responsible to ensure that the requirements of this Work Instruction are satisfied by the project organization and control.

The Project Engineering Group is responsible for the filing, distribution and monitoring of comments between departments and/or comments transmitted to Company from outside bodies (e.g. Client, Authorities).

All lead personnel are responsible to ensure that the detailed requirements of this Work Instruction are fulfilled in relation to the documents produced under their responsibility.

The Originator (author) is responsible for the:

- document quality and providing background information, if appropriate; - filing, distribution and monitoring of comments.

4. Instruction

4.1 Master Copies

From each document produced by Company, a "master" copy shall be kept on file by the originating group (ref. 5.7 and 5.8).

This copy shall be clearly identified as the master by the word "master" either stamped or boldly written in red, on the front sheet of multipaged (A4/A3) documents such as specifications, requisitions, procedures, or near the title block of drawings and other larger format documents.

The "master" shall be used for the marking-up of all revisions, developments, and comments that are required to be incorporated in the next issue of the document.

At the time of reissue of the document, wherein all such markups are incorporated, a new "master" copy shall be prepared to replace the old, superseded "master" and this shall be kept and used for the following issue of the document.

The superseded "master" shall be boldly crossed through in red and the word "done" added, together with the initials of the responsible individual and the date.

The superseded "master" shall be kept on file, by the Originator, until project completion, as the record of all previous markups.

4.2 Issue for Comments

4.2.1 Internal Comments

All documents produced by a group which have an influence on, or may be influenced by, other groups within Company, shall be sent to those groups for internal comments. Such issues may coincide with the issue "for Client comment".

4.2.2 External Comments

Documents which are required to be sent for comment to bodies outside Company's organization (Client, Authorities etc.) are itemized in the project specification and/or the project procedures.

All such documents shall be sent, via the Project Group, to the external body/bodies under cover of a Company transmittal, and in accordance with the project document distribution system/matrix.

4.3 Comments on Documents

4.3.1 Internal Comments

When internal comments are received on Company documents, they shall be either added onto the "master" or kept securely with the master for incorporation in the new issue of the document.

If the recipient disagrees with, or does not understand any comment(s) received, he shall make contact with the initiator of the comment to reach agreement and/or clarification.

Comments and comment prints shall be kept on file until the end of the project with the superseded "master", and shall be crossed through with "done", or similar description of the action taken, plus initials and date, in the same manner as the superseded masters are handled.

Note:

Where major inconsistencies appear between internal comments and external comments received on a document, these shall be resolved by agreement, and recorded, with all parties concerned prior to the reissue of the document.

4.3.2 External Comments

When external comments are received on documents submitted, they are normally accompanied by a return transmittal with the comments marked on the transmittal and preferably on the returned copy of the document.

If, after the initial comments, further comments are given by that same outside body then these should also be covered by a transmittal, covering letter or Minutes of Meeting.

All such return transmittals shall be filed by the Project Engineering Group, in consecutive order, whether the outside body has made comments for action or not, excepting those from authorities which shall be filed by the Authority Engineer.

In those cases where comments for action have been made, an additional copy of the transmittal shall be filed under a separate heading clearly marked "comments" and a further copy sent to the responsible Project Engineer/Supervisor. The "Comments" file contains transmittal of unprocessed comments only.

Returned transmittal shall be copied to the originator of the referenced documents together with the comments made.

On receipt of transmittal and comments, the document originator shall review these comments.

Whenever the originator disagrees with and/or does not understand any comment(s), he shall ensure that agreement is reached with, or clarification is obtained from the originator of the comment(s). All major clarification and/or agreements shall be confirmed in writing with reference to the document on which the comments were made (transmittal, telex etc.)

The received comment copy of the subject document shall be annotated by the document originator, with reference to all major clarifications and/or agreements as mentioned above. These annotations shall be initialed and dated.

As soon as the received comments, have been incorporated in either the master or a reissue of the original documents, then the document originator shall boldly cross through the transmittal adding the word "done", initialed and dated. This transmittal shall then be kept on file by the document originator, and a copy thereof returned to the Project Engineering Group as confirmation that the received comments have been processed.

When the Project Engineering Group receives such copies of these processed transmittals, they shall be filed under a separate heading "comments processed". At the same time the copies already kept in the "comments" file, shall be removed and destroyed so as to indicate a close-out of each required action. Thus, the "comments" file only contains the transmittals not yet formally processed.

At regular intervals (once every 4 weeks) the Project Engineering Group shall review the "comments" file and take any follow-up actions necessary to ensure that outstanding comments are processed.

4.3.3 Conflicting Comments

Where internal or external comments received are in conflict with each other and/or the essence of the document, then all such con­flicts shall be resolved by the document originator, with all the parties involved, prior to reissue of the document.

All resolved conflicts shall be recorded by notes on the comment prints for internal comments resolved and by telex or Minutes of Meeting for external comments resolved.

4.4 Other Required Actions

Apart from the comments received on documents issued for the purpose of being commented upon, there may be other comments, and/or re­quired action instructions, received from outside bodies (e.g. Client, Authorities) for Company to process. Such comments/instructions may be presented to Company by means of a letter, telex, confirmed telecon and/or Minutes of Meetings. It is the responsibility of the Project Engineering Group to monitor and record these requirements, and actions taken, on a monthly basis. This shall result in an action list (see section 4.5 and Attachment 1).

All telexes, and letters shall be processed by the project group, and kept in the project central filing system.

4.5 Recording Comments and Actions

Action List

The Project Engineering Group shall establish, and update on a monthly basis an "action list" including all activities for Company's action identified from letters, telexes, telecons and Minutes of Meetings as referred to above. The reference to the source document shall be clearly indicated. Each action listed shall be numbered in consecutive order and shall be suitably described, including the following information:

• Action by (initials) (Specialist)
• Follow-up by (Account Engineer)
• Description of subject
• Reference document
• Date action completed.

For a Minutes of Meeting, the action list shall list, under a single action, all the paragraphs requiring action, and list all the specialists and Account Engineers required to act and follow up on the Minutes of that Meeting (Attachment 1).

Each completed action shall be deleted from the action list for the issue following its reported completion.

All previously issued action lists shall be kept on file by the Project Engineering group until project completion.

The action list shall be reviewed monthly and distributed as follows:

• Project Director/Manager
• Project Engineering Manager
• Design Engineering Supervisors
• Quality Assurance Manager
• All Parties required to take action
• Client

5. References

6. Attachments

ACTION LIST
JOB No.-----------------------------