Ensuring Worker Training Complies With ISO, AS, IATF and Other Quality Mandates

Proactive Technologies, Inc. – Staff

Each of the quality programs typically modeled by manufacturers and service organizations is rooted in the American National Standards Institute (“ANSI”) program for quality assurance and control that served us up to the 1980’s. What each of the subsequent models tries to achieve is simplicity, standardization and verifiability. Audits are used to ensure these attributes are present.

When compliance with ANSI requirements became inconsistent among manufacturers, International Standards Organization (“ISO”) rewrote the standards to make them more compliable and encouraged an international acceptance of the standards. ISO models allow the host to be certified to a part/process, or to its people performing a process or as an overall facility producing and product(s)/service(s) for export. In any model from a worker’s contribution to the product or service, the fundamental standard is whether there are clear, compliable processes in place to control and measure a repetitive, consistent level of quality. The next standard is whether the host makes a documented effort to train/retrain workers to the processes (when changes occur). The third standard is whether the host has a records system that accurately tracks each worker’s progress toward “mastery” of the processes they are responsible to perform.

ISO was the basis for first the QS model (automotive industry) that later became the TS16949 model, which later became the IATF16949 model. The IATF and AS9100D (aerospace industry) models are similarly structured when it comes to training. During audits, the auditor looks for evidence that all three requirements are met, seeking a pattern of consistency in past records that the system appears to have the attributes that will lead to the same consistency going forward. Customers may use similar techniques to audit vendors and suppliers. The new National Aerospace and Defense Contractor Accreditation Program NADCAP (for prequalifying defense and commercial aerospace industry suppliers to a higher level of consistency) as well as other industry-specific standards developed or being developed have similar requirements for training. The reason that all of these models follow a quality standard for worker training is that it is measurable, unlike the old days when auditors encountered a drawer full of rosters or a partially current Excel spreadsheet – with no real evidence of  the connection between training, the work to be performed and the worker to perform it.

Taking a class on even closely related theory does not prove a worker can perform a process, but it might show the worker has the core knowledge and possibly lower-order skills to learn the unique processes to be performed, which is a good basis upon which to start task-based training. From a quality assurance perspective, documentation showing that process-based on-the-job training was recently delivered (and any process revisions were since conveyed) correlates to the decreased odds of non-conformance for that process. That is the reason quality assurance and control models seek that evidence in an audit.

Building a structured on-the-job training infrastructure is not that difficult, if based on a proven approach. The cost to do should be seen as truly an investment, since it is a non-recurring cost and the investment per worker declines for each new worker trained. Attending classes or taking onsite courses, on the other hand, is a repetitive cost for each worker attending.

An effective training strategy would be to first perform job/task analysis on each critical job classification. Second, interpret from the data any related technical instruction that may help the worker learn the tasks and limit these costs by focused content selection. Third, develop your on-the-job training plans and checklists, and fourth, implement structured on-the-job training and document task mastery. Click here for more information.

Your auditor will be truly impressed with what they see, and will move away from auditing the training function to other areas of the organization…a relief to any human resources, human resource development and operations manager. It also is a confidence-builder for customers to see that a potential contractor takes worker training seriously.

If your organization is finding compliance with ISO, AS, IATF, NADCAP or any other quality program challenging and would like to learn more about a system designed for manufacturing – including quality models as well as safety and labor mandates – which builds around what is already in place, check out Proactive Technologies’ structured on-the-job training system approach to see how it might work at your firm, your family of facilities or your region. Contact a Proactive Technologies representative today to schedule a GoToMeeting videoconference briefing to your computer. This can be followed up with an onsite presentation for you and your colleagues. A 13-minute promo briefing is available at the Proactive Technologies website and provides an overview to get you started and to help you explain it to your staff. As always, onsite presentations are available as well.