1. Purpose of the gate
This gate releases the system as designed. After it, every process runs to its released description and procedures, and every change goes through document change control. The review checks that the process map is complete, that each process has an owner, inputs, outputs, measures and risks, that every procedure the standards and customers require exists, that customer specific requirements reach the processes that must meet them, and that document and record control are working.
Two key decisions are frozen here: the process structure and documentation depth, and the document and record systems. Both are expensive to change once records start to build up, because audits, training and record retrieval all depend on them.
Release does not mean the documents are perfect. It means they are good enough to run and measure, and that the organisation will learn from running them through the normal change process rather than through unofficial edits.
11 more sections for registered members.