Worker Compliance With Engineering, Quality and Safety Specifications; Avoid Audits Without Clear Worker
Training/Certification Policy/Program
by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.®
When attempting to comply with the worker training provisions of ISO, AS, IATF, or Nadcap, it is important to keep in mind the intent of the requirement. The goal should include avoiding an “overshoot” with unnecessary additional work and/or creating an infrastructure that is hard to manage and prone to noncompliance. Often interdepartmental rivalries interfere with logical discussions of how to meet the requirement without creating an internal institution to manage it.
Typically, the guidelines for each of the major quality initiatives listed contains a section that provides a fairly open requirement for worker training to make sure the worker component of the “quality system” is sufficient to ensure that process-based tasks can be performed as designed. If they cannot, the effectiveness of the rest of the quality assurance system will be thrown into doubt. The framework below provides guidance but places the responsibility on the registrant to end any past practices that were inconclusive and open to questions:
A. PERSONNEL DEVELOPMENT AND CERTIFICATION
A.1 Training and Certification
click here to expandA.1.1 Has all work performance “knowledge” been captured for use in developing and maintaining a consistently compliant workforce?
A.1.2 Are there structured, consistent training procedures that assure personnel performing critical tasks and associated quality and test functions are competent to perform assigned tasks?
A.1.3 Do records exist and indicate that training and certification is conducted in accordance with procedures?
A.2 Evaluation of Personnel
A.2.1 Do training procedures require periodic evaluation to ensure that approved personnel maintain proficiency in their assigned tasks, which might have changed since employee certification?
A.2.2 Do records indicate that the evaluations are performed at documented frequencies and the results reviewed with employees in a program of continuous improvement of personnel?
There are two parts to this process of worker training represented by sections A.1 and A.2. Section A.1 addresses the underlying training of and certification of workers to the processes they are expected to perform and comply. Read More
A Balanced Approach to Employee Development, Discipline and Recognition
by Stacey Lett, Director of Operations – Eastern U.S. – Proactive Technologies, Inc.®
Most of us have experienced an unbalanced approach to employee management. Often supervisors or managers are quick to react to a negative incident, but slow to recognize and respond to a positive one. In parenting, not making sure each child is trained properly to ensure they can perform tasks correctly to meet expectations throws recognizing and disciplining he child into questionable territory. Not certain on which child can/should be able to meet expectations, disciplining teens like you would your youngest can condition them to behave as such. Maybe a stretch for some to see the connection of this with managing adults, most should be able to see where I am going.
Policy manuals are full of examples of behavior not acceptable to the company. Everything from coming to work late to confrontations with fellow employees. Once one of these events is noted and recorded, it hangs over the employee through their career with the company, often given more weight than anything positive even if it was recorded.
Two little attention and recognition is paid to positive events, such as ensuring the work area is always clean at end of shift, a coworker being a very thoughtful and thorough trainer, or a worker that is quick to jump in wherever needed to ensure quotas are met. Rarely are positive issues spelled out in a policy manual to guide supervisors and managers on how to motivate and encourage employees when they exhibit stellar behavior as examples to others.
click here to expandThis could be why morale often sinks in busy production environments. Supervisors and managers are pushed to run a tight ship, and are often penalized themselves for taking a few minutes to acknowledge the type of behavior company management should want to see more of from employees. This could be one reason why employees burn out.
Companies that are a little more laxed in their enforcement of the negative behaviors that are punishable see a decrease in organizational tension. Those that are clear and deliberate about their policies, providing structured on-the-job training pathways for each individual’s career development, and those encouraging more recognition of positive behaviors, tend to be the type of company’s employees want to stay at, and refer to their friends who may be seeking employment. Increases work quality, increased worker capacity, increased worker productivity and increased morale lead to decreases in employee turnover, employee scrap and rework – a simple formula for maximizing an organization’s success and return on investment. Read More
A Project That Sold Me on Proactive Technologies’ Structured On-The-Job Training System
by Frank Gibson, Workforce Development Advisor and President of the North-Central Ohio Employer-Based Worker Training Partnership
I have been working in the area of workforce and management development for a good part of my life. I have tried to help organizations navigate many of the upheavals in the economy and challenges to specific employer operations. Sometimes an employer senses something is wrong or could be much better, but lack the sources of information they can trust. One project changed my conviction on a better way to help workers and employers many years ago and continued to prove itself ever since. For me, one project in particular stands out.
Proactive Technologies, Inc. started a project in 2000 with an Ohio aerospace manufacturer that was concerned with their legacy workforce reaching retirement age. Several generations of workers continued to work there because, according to them, “it was a good company to work for.” The company estimated 40% were scheduled to retire in the next 2 years; 80% total were eligible to retire in the next 6 years Many of the people were the only people who knew how to run certain equipment, certain machines, perform certain processes and were about to retire and take all that expertise with them. After reviewing many options and products (including an expensive but unproductive Lean project), the company HR director commissioned Proactive Technologies to perform a job task analysis on 5 production job classifications (later expanded to 19 job classifications based on a success of the pilot) to capture the expertise, develop training programs to quickly replicate replacements through the accelerated transfer of expertise system™, and provide the documentation and technical implementation support needed to ensure the project was successful. In many cases, the retiree could use the materials they helped develop to train their replacement before leaving.
click here to expandAt that time, I was employed with The Ohio State University – Alber Enterprise Center (after stints in manufacturing and with the State of Ohio Department of Development) and was already aware of PTI‘s approach since 1996. I was also aware many of the educational institutions had little that employers found relevant yet themselves failed to take on-the-job training seriously even though encouraged to do so by Proactive Technologies’ President Dean Prigelmeier. When the first five job/task analyses were completed for this aerospace company and all the support materials developed from it, the HR Director, within minutes of being handed the PTI provided report analyzing each of the 5 job’s job/task analysis data for their pre-hire requirements, called and ordered several courses from the Alber Center to help remediate incoming workers and prepare them for the structured OJT to come next. I had to “shop around” for some of the courses with the most current and relevant content available, and a few we had to design ourselves. This would not have been possible without the data produced during the job/task analysis that identified pre-hire skill, ability and competency requirements in order to be successful in the deliberate, documented task-based training that was to come.
In about 2004, the company’s management decided to sell off some of its divisions, and this plant was going to be one of them. Fearing the loss of retirement benefits through the acquisition, many production workers who were scheduled to retire in later years, decided to move up their retirement and lock in their benefits. Consequently, 10 people out of a production workforce of around 110 changed job classifications each month for an entire year. The Company’s union bargaining agreement required “bumping“ by less senior workers to fill the job openings internally first. When 1 person retired, 3-4 people at a time would change job assignments.
The acquiring company, like most acquiring companies, looked first to “cut costs.“ and at the top of the list was headcount The HR Director met with senior leadership of the acquiring company with a PTI provided report that detailed all of the tasks that each worker mastered in each of the jobs that they were trained in while employed to illustrate the investment the company made and value that would be lost in such a random act with unpredictable outcomes. The decision was made to leave the staffing levels alone.
Over the next two years, the company’s operation became more focused and even more profitable with the increased workload. Within those 2 years, the increase in profits was enough to pay back the acquiring investors investment 100% – even during the tumultuous year of employee reassignment that could have sank any operation. The HR Director was convinced, and said so publicly on many occasions, none of that would have been possible without having the structured on-the-job training infrastructure for each production job area such as NC machinist, quality control, maintenance, electrician, press operator, press operator, specialty assembly, testing, bonding and others. Read More
Maybe 2026 is the Right Time to Restructure U.S. Economic Reporting to Reflect Our Dual Economy
by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.®
In the past few decades, there has been a building discussion by affected parties – the bottom 90% of the consumers, entrepreneurs, small and mid-size businesses and communities continually devastated by unexpected gyrations created by the 10% – about the “K-shaped economy.” The momentum is steadily building for either a correction to this version of capitalism to make it more fair and growing for a larger part of the economy like during the post-WWII boom, with metrics/statistics, attention/reporting to track and report that change to citizens who need that information to affect change that positively impacts their future.
Have you ever watched a business show or some network news “economic expert” explain the state of the U.S. economy, scratched your head and asked yourself, “What world are these guys living in?” You hear things like, “good news for XYZ company, 10,000 workers will be laid off.” Or, “the federal reserve interest rate dropped .25%, meaning credit card interest rates, mortgage rates, borrowing rates are headed downward for consumers,” when rarely do those things happen to low and middle class borrowers. Or you might hear, “good news, inflation last month dropped by .5%, signaling consumers could breath a little easier,” when most of us nearly choked when we saw prices at the grocery store, filled our gas tank or opened our monthly telephone our utility bills.
click here to expandThere is a reason the vast majority of Americans feel their issues haven’t been addressed for a long time. Rosy economic statistics for a few and grim economic statistics being experienced by the many have been, for decades, lumped together with the cheery numbers prevailing. Individuals keeping silent, thinking they are the only ones experiencing tough economics and unjustly blaming themselves for the harsh times inflicted upon them. For example, when looking at the rise in personal income for the U.S. over a period of time, understand that includes the billionaires and highly paid CEOs as well as the most poor. It is like “teachers grading tests based on the curve,” always thrown off by that one smart guy who skews the curve towards him/her and those below score worse grades than they would have. Personal Income Growth at the low end looks better it they should because adding the higher and highest income individuals into the same formula gives the illusion that all “boats are rising” when most are still trapped in the tidal mud.
Another example is cheering on the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the stock market when it goes up and fretting when it goes down. First of all, the Down Jones Industrial Average is a derivative basket of 30 premium stocks that are bet with and against like a hedge fund. Chances are very few 401Ks include them in their portfolio – except through exchange traded funds (“ETFs”) – and most people wouldn’t know if they were. But if some in the basket individually decline too much that they are dragging the fund down, they are replaced and the Dow continues its climb upward. Furthermore, in 2025 62% of Americans had some ownership of stock, yet “The wealthiest 10% of Americans own 93% of stocks even with market participation at a record high. The bottom 50% of Americans held just 1% of all stocks as of the third quarter of 2023” according to Business Insider. The top has enough financial power to drive stock prices up when it serves them, and drive stock prices down – betting on the decline by causing it – unbeknownst to the small, disengaged investor. They have enough of the collective wealth to create illusionary trends to fuel their market profits even more by pushing the economy in the direction that benefits them…until it doesn’t and they move on to something else. Read More
Read the full January, 2026 Proactive Technologies Report™ newsletter, including linked industry articles and online presentation schedules.
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