Is there any regulatory requirement/guidance for QA to sign documents last after others or is this just an industry best practice?
No regulatory requirements (or even standards) that I’m aware of. Just be careful to not go against your internal procedures.
That’s what we are trying to change and make parallel review/approval for documents.
So especially for the document review,No other department will review except QA .
regulations only say that you have to define document management in a procedure. You have lots of freedom there.
Key point is, how a document becomes effective. This should be the privilege of the owner of the system/process. Thus, for the SOPs it is usually QA, although I believe it would make more sense to have the process owner accountable to make a procedure effective for his/her area of responsibility.
QA often wants to be last in order to ensure that all required approvals have been made. On the other hand this is can be assured by the signatory list.
I agree with Berthold. My experience is that QA signs last to see that others are satisfied with the document. Then, if changes need to be made, they can be done prior`to QA approving. Therefore the signatures need to be attained be before QA.
Quality assurance will assure the correctness of the document after reviews by respective department. I assume that quality assurance approval at end is the right practice.