Appling same errata in prod and dev

Let me start by confessing that I'm pretty new to satellite. We are currently running 5.4.1 which is supporting about 90 systems. We have provisoning entitlements on all systems. While we try to keep our dev and prod environments the same they are not 100% identical. And to add to the complication some of our more critical systems will be be patched in dev at least a month before we are able to patch production. I should mention that, until now, we've never patched our redhat systems. We update them once they are built but there is a fearful attitude in our organization about patching and breaking ERP systems. Now that I've fussed at 'em enough that they'll let me patch, I need to be able to make sure that I'm only appling errata in production that have already been applied and tested in dev.

I know there's documentation out there somewhere that covers this topic but I'm having a hard time finding it. Any ideas, suggestion are links to documentation would be greatly appreciated.