We had a 2 day preassessment audit this week ( 2 auditors ).
Things went well with 1 major finding.

Training / competency

We defined production employees competency well, however we did not address other positions (management, office, maintenance etc). :frust:

Some minors were:
Potential field failures also needs to be vamped up a little.

We are a tier 2, and some of our customers specific requirements are hard to find and/or actually get. So this is another area we have to look at.

Just a FYI, I have used these forums some, read alot. Figured I would try and give back a little. :bigwave:

By the way. The audit went much better than what I thought. So for those that haven't done it yet. Relax!! ;)

You were given a major for that!? Will you be able to get it taken care of and get the auditor back in before December 15? Other than that sounds like you did well.

Yes a major.(not that I agree)!! They (and we) feel we can get the issues addressed prior to our regristration audit, which is the week of October 20.

I failed to read the (pre)assessment. But I think most Registrars would have given that a minor, since you have something in place. Registrar Auditors that are members, comments. Who is your Registrar?

On the one Majorly ridiculous Minor finiding about training/competence, can you share HOW you defined the competence of production employees? Just to compare notes...

HI Ter!

I´m in a tier 2 also, and i was wondering hoe did you deal with your customer requirements? Here we are going to lay over plans and drawings. Don´t know if this shall be enough, but hope it will.

Any help on this matter will be greatly apreciated.

Thanks and congrats!

For production employees it's actually very basic.

Define what skills are needed to run the job.
Are they running that job well? Scrap/rework issues? If none, they are competent. If not, there is a training need. You train (or is some cases, retrain). Then re-evaulate.
Our auditors said competency is a OUR determination of the employee.

As long as you have determined the skills needed, you document the evaluation, you have it!!

Where it gets sticky is management. Is your division manager competent? What skills needed? This is what we need to address.

Any ideas out there??

Drawings and blueprints are NOT enough for customer specific, even for us Tier 2's!!!!

I have found that a few of our customers have web sites with customer specific requirements. (the size of websters dictonary!)

Not sure how big your customers are, but maybe the web is a start.

I supply to Johnson Controls & Lear Co. and neither of them has anything on their web sites regarding customer specifics.

Is it OK to argue that " In my P.O. there´s no requirement specified other than the drawing " actually all requirements for manufactured parts are referenced in the mylar copies

I dont´t recall there´s another way to look at what customers is seeking than the blueprint, at least in the branch I´m working

Yes a major.(not that I agree)!! They (and we) feel we can get the issues addressed prior to our regristration audit, which is the week of October 20.

Part of the decision about major or minor might be based on the circumstances why the support areas weren't listed. If it as a decision that the did not fall under 6.2, then one could argue it to be a minor. However, if you never considered support, then it could indicate a failure in your QMS, which could warrant a major.

Where it gets sticky is management. Is your division manager competent? What skills needed? This is what we need to address.



The easy answer is that if your division manager still has a job he/she must be competent (or at a minimum competent enough). The real question is how is that decision made, and how is it documented? I can argue that because I have not fired an employee, then that employee must be competent enough.

6.2.2 e) means you have to maintain records of education, training, skills and experience. Where are you required to maintain records of determining competence.

Where it gets sticky is management. Is your division manager competent? What skills needed? This is what we need to address.

Oh, I hate this stuff. :mad: I think I will purposely put in my training that as long as my plant manager can stand on 1 leg, can read 1 page from the ISO standard of his choice, and has a Social Sercurity Card that he is considered competent. Plus he doesn't have to do them all at once.

This is where the standards go overboard and the auditors with them. Who are you to tell me how or why I choose someone for their job? I said they are competent, I don't have to document it. The standard says I "shall" determine, provide, evaluate, make aware, and maintain records of "EDUCATION, TRAINING, SKILLS & EXPERIENCE". Not if s/he is competent.

The person answered the want ad, counted to 25 without the use of anothers foot or hand. Challenge me on why they can't run the HR Department! You can't, and neither can ISO or the RAB.
Education - Evelyn Wood Speed Reading Course & a GED
Here is the training record - Underwater penny stacking and basket weaving for dummies.
Here are the Skills - Answer phone, doesn't drool on self while at work.
Experience - 6 years as patience at Northville State Hospital, 3 years at Gotham City Assylum for the Criminally Insane and 1 year on Work Release!

Hey Stew if those were your company's real requirements I'd want to be President, cause I'd probably only have to count to 100 and be able to deligate EVERYTHING. :ko:

For President you have to know that M O O N spells sheriff energy.
But how we weed everybody out is that they have to be a conservative republican that drives a yugo!

We use a certain type of evaluation for top management, PMM phylosophy, have you heard of it?

In case you haven´t, we give each manager ( production , tooling) a quality objective linked to the business plan, sometimes is reach below 1% scrap or to increase % RFT, this is on an annual basis. If manager reachs it´s objective then he gets i.e. 10% raise in his/her wage if he doesn´t then probably just 5% all depends on the performance he reaches.

So if he/She has reached his goals continnously then perhaps he is compenent enough, still there´re some objectives that can´t reach, and it doesn´t mean one is lack of competitivity or not doing his work.

This responsibility relies on plant manager, and he´s the one who can give an argument about his/hers performance. For plant managers there´s an operations & a regional director, and so on ......

Lear and Johnson Controls are also customers to us. And they DO have customer specifics on their web sites. Lear has many documents.
Our p.o.'s from lear even say "our requirements for have changed go to www.lear.com for updates". I urge you to find customer specifics.