The Manufacturer’s Record Book
A Manufacturer’s Record Book (MRB), or Quality Dossier, is a collection of documents certifying quality control and contains all applicable quality information regarding a product, such as the certificate of compliance, mill certifications and component test certificates that allow customers and inspectors to check for compliance.
MRBs are often required in the Oil and Gas industry and in all sensitive industries and marketplace areas where the demands for better performances tend to lead to high stress on components, requiring appropriate quality control over metallurgy and manufacturing processes.
The MRBs need to provide a complete and reliable record of all quality aspects of a product, along with the evidence of material identification and origin, thus giving the parties involved confidence that the product is in full compliance with the contractual specifications. It is a key issue for the purchaser and end-user of the product to make sure the material obtained will perform as intended, especially when a failure could have serious consequences on plant performance and on safety.
Preparing a MRB is hard work
Although in an ideal world a MRB should be progressively collected simply by adding to it any new test certificate as soon as it is duly provided with the inspector’s signature for endorsement, what happens in a real project is often challenging and far less straightforward.
Depending on the requirements of the Inspection and Test Plan, the inspections might span over weeks or months, the inspectors might therefore change frequently, and the number of components or tests could be very high and challenge the resources available at the manufacturer’s to orderly collect the relevant test certificates.
The complexity of the MRB may increase hugely due to these uncertainty factors, so everyone, including the manufacturer, the inspector, and the purchaser need to check everything twice prior to accepting the MRB, wasting time and resources that could rather be dedicated to more important tasks.
Automatizing the MRB with NotifyMe
Here are a few ways NotifyMe can help manage the Manufacturer’s Record Book efficiently:
- Centralized document storage – NotifyMe ensures that every user accesses the latest version of the project documentation so everyone can work on documents with the same revision level. In addition, NotifyMe makes clear to all parties the approval status of the project documentation.
- Automatizing the Manufacturer’s Record Book – when the result of the inspection is satisfactory the test certificates can be automatically added to the quality dossier or Manufacturers’ Record Books. This helps eliminate redundant data input and allow seamless information flow between departments.
- Data security – The NotifyMe document control system lets organizations limit data visibility to only what is necessary to the user. With NotifyMe, depending on the access level of the user, the visibility of documents will change. This ensures that an organization can operate in its document control system safely and securely.
- Standardization – NotifyMe is designed to help organizations with different processes and procedures to effectively collaborate by sharing documents in a controlled manner.
- Easy online access – Updates are made available in real time so that the green light to proceed with the manufacturing activities is given immediately.
- Electronic signature – The test certificates can be additionally endorsed by the inspectors using an electronic signature.
With NotifyMe, organizations reduce costs due to miscommunication and manual errors thanks to a centralized document accumulation and a simple, streamlined collaboration process. This help organizations increase the efficiency of how they collect the test certificates and build the MRBs.
