Are uncontrolled documents necessary document control?
(Jul.3w,2004)

1.hISO9001 for Small Businesses: What to do: Advice from ISO/TC176h
It says in explanations of 4.2.3 that you should always try to keep the number of copies of documents to an absolute minimum. Access to common documentation is much simpler in a small business where there is less formality, fewer potential users and smaller, often single, sites. If everybody has easy access to one central copy, the need for complex controls can be eliminated and arrangements for controlling changes simplified.

2. The example of Company M
The company with about thirty employees got ISO9001:1994 several yeas ago with heavy documentation system guided with a consultant from a big company that had Deming Prize.
The company distributed fifteen copies of its quality manual. It resulted in meaningless heavy control work and found it was hard jobs to keep for the small company.
Then the company decided to improve the system at the opportunity of transition to 2000 version. It stopped doing the copy and made to see the common original referring to h ISO9001 for Small Businesses: What to do: Advice from ISO/TC176h, because it took within two or three minutes to reach the original.

3. Example of the Company S
Recently Company S had received the final assessment of ISO9001:2000 certification.
The company has the same company size as Company M.
At the assessment an assessor found several managers had each copied quality manual with stamped guncontrolledh and the copied manuals were version A, instead the original was version B.
The assessor said the status did not conform to the requirement of controls to ensure that relevant versions of applicable documents are available at the point of the use.

It was a totally nonsense nonconformity! He ignored the adviceh ISO9001 for Small Businesses: What to do: Advice from ISO/TC176h and has shown his lack of competence for a lead assessor.