What Compliance to ISO 9001, 6.2.2 Competence, Awareness and Training Means

Hi all,
I'm looking for clarity to what compliance to 6.2.2 actually means. The standard states in 6.2.2, "The Organization shall a) determine the necessary competence for personnel performing work affecting product quality, b) provide training or take other actions to satisfy these needs, c) evaluate the effectiveness of the actions taken, ...) In performing an ISO audit to Element 6 I asked the QM how he complied with 6.2.2c. His said after initial training, which is documented on an internal training form, no other evaluations are needed. I mentioned in 4.2.4 where it states, "Records shall be established and maintained to provide evidence of conformity to requirements and of the effective operation of the quality management system. Records shall remain legible, readily identifiable and retrievable." My question is should there be records in place documenting some form of evaluation that any training of operators given is a) understood by the trainees and b) being implemented properly by said trainees? Anyone run into this? Thanks for any input.

Re: Compliance to ISO 9001:2000, 6.2.2 Competence, Awareness and Training

fallon said:

Hi all,
I'm looking for clarity to what compliance to 6.2.2 actually means. The standard states in 6.2.2, "The Organization shall a) determine the necessary competence for personnel performing work affecting product quality, b) provide training or take other actions to satisfy these needs, c) evaluate the effectiveness of the actions taken, ...) In performing an ISO audit to Element 6 I asked the QM how he complied with 6.2.2c. His said after initial training, which is documented on an internal training form, no other evaluations are needed. I mentioned in 4.2.4 where it states, "Records shall be established and maintained to provide evidence of conformity to requirements and of the effective operation of the quality management system. Records shall remain legible, readily identifiable and retrievable." My question is should there be records in place documenting some form of evaluation that any training of operators given is a) understood by the trainees and b) being implemented properly by said trainees? Anyone run into this? Thanks for any input.

Click to expand...

Rather than focusing on the record to meet this "shall", the intent is to have in place a process/activity according to that that the organization evaluates the effectiveness of the actions taken for training. If you want, a document filled shall be also considered a record, but this is not the point.
My question to you is: how did the organization evaluate the effectiveness of the training in all its shapes ( I mean, on the job training, class room training , training with industry,coaching, mentoring and so on).
If the organization set the required competencies, it should have done also to check for the effectiveness.
My experience is that the effectiveness can be assessed by the supervisor/manager of the employee attesting that he/she is able to perfmor his/her job after job evaluation performance.
This is an indirect way, but it could work, as well as the certification of techs/operators after a certain ojt or the results achieved by a manager who was assigned to projects/task.
Clearly it is required formation and training are required for this and if the results are in line or exceed expections, this could be an indirect way to measure the effectiveness of the training.

Re: Compliance to ISO 9001:2000, 6.2.2 Competence, Awareness and Training

Don't mind sharing my process and documentation folder for training with you. This has passed two separate AS9100 certifications at different companies and will soon go under a third at my current company. Change it to fit your needs, No pride in authorship. View attachment FCI PTR-622-001 Competence Awareness and Training Rev A.docx

View attachment FTR-622-004_Personnel_Training_Record_Rev_B.docx

fallon said:

Hi all,
I'm looking for clarity to what compliance to 6.2.2 actually means. The standard states in 6.2.2, "The Organization shall a) determine the necessary competence for personnel performing work affecting product quality, b) provide training or take other actions to satisfy these needs, c) evaluate the effectiveness of the actions taken, ...) In performing an ISO audit to Element 6 I asked the QM how he complied with 6.2.2c. His said after initial training, which is documented on an internal training form, no other evaluations are needed. I mentioned in 4.2.4 where it states, "Records shall be established and maintained to provide evidence of conformity to requirements and of the effective operation of the quality management system. Records shall remain legible, readily identifiable and retrievable." My question is should there be records in place documenting some form of evaluation that any training of operators given is a) understood by the trainees and b) being implemented properly by said trainees? Anyone run into this? Thanks for any input.

Click to expand...

Fallon: I believe you are in danger of confusing things. Unless you are doing some type of gap evaluation against the ISO requirements, you should be auditing to your own QMS. By phrasing audit questions in "ISO speak" isn't going to get you what you - or the auditee - really need from any audit. Your QMS is supposed to be constructed and the 'touch points' of compliance, to these specific requirements should be clear to someone (the Management Rep, hopefully) Hence, your audit should be of the implementation not 'interpretation'.

Andy, you make a point that is so often misconstrued by lots of folks. The standard (AS9100) indicates (and auditors agree) that you write your QMS so that it reflects what your company does and in your company's language. You then perform internal audits to make sure that is the case and that your processes meet the Standard's requirements. I've had auditors tell me that if they see a QMS that is wrtten in "ISO Speak", they are immediately suspicious of it and will almost bet that most employees don't understand the QMS.

Sub-clause (c) closes the loop by asking you to follow-up to see if the training provided addressed the inconsistencies that you identified in sub-clause (a). If a competency gap was identified through something like an annual performance review or simply from observation by a supervisor or manager, then checking whether the gap was addressed after the training took place can be done by subsequent reviews or observations.

We use pre- and post-tests to measure the degree of learning that took place. In addition, the participants fill out an evaluation questionnaire. These are processes that our organization has chosen to use.

For the auditee to state to you that no evaluation takes place after initial training, this raises a red flag.

Re: Compliance to ISO 9001:2000, 6.2.2 Competence, Awareness and Training

qusys said:

Rather than focusing on the record to meet this "shall", the intent is to have in place a process/activity according to that that the organization evaluates the effectiveness of the actions taken for training. If you want, a document filled shall be also considered a record, but this is not the point.
My question to you is: how did the organization evaluate the effectiveness of the training in all its shapes ( I mean, on the job training, class room training , training with industry,coaching, mentoring and so on).
If the organization set the required competencies, it should have done also to check for the effectiveness.
My experience is that the effectiveness can be assessed by the supervisor/manager of the employee attesting that he/she is able to perfmor his/her job after job evaluation performance.
This is an indirect way, but it could work, as well as the certification of techs/operators after a certain ojt or the results achieved by a manager who was assigned to projects/task.
Clearly it is required formation and training are required for this and if the results are in line or exceed expections, this could be an indirect way to measure the effectiveness of the training.

Click to expand...

I'm sure that there are many ways to evaluate the effectiveness of training or other actions to help employees to become competent.

Some companies perform annual employee reviews.

Some follow up training activities by having a manager or supervisor interview the employee and observe his work to determine that recent training was effective. A simple note in the training file provides a record. It can even be a column on a training record form or matrix.

Some use their KPI results, particularly product quality tracking as evidence that people know what they are doing.

I'm sure that there are many more.

Figure out what you are already doing or at least what would be easy to do, and do it.

Re: Compliance to ISO 9001:2000, 6.2.2 Competence, Awareness and Training

Big Jim said:

I'm sure that there are many ways to evaluate the effectiveness of training or other actions to help employees to become competent.

Some companies perform annual employee reviews.

Some follow up training activities by having a manager or supervisor interview the employee and observe his work to determine that recent training was effective. A simple note in the training file provides a record. It can even be a column on a training record form or matrix.

Some use their KPI results, particularly product quality tracking as evidence that people know what they are doing.

I'm sure that there are many more.

Figure out what you are already doing or at least what would be easy to do, and do it.

Click to expand...

Agree with you, Jim.
My response was anly an attempt to share experiences and ideas to the question of the original poster Fallon.
The question of the verification of effectiveness of the training etc.etc. was debating many times in other threads of this forum.
Each organization can meet the clause in whatever way, the importance is that the way is effective to sustain the process/activity .
As we know, the standard does not say "how" to proceed.
Thank for your imput, hope my post, like the others of the Covers, was helpull for Fallon.

Re: Compliance to ISO 9001:2000, 6.2.2 Competence, Awareness and Training

qusys said:

Agree with you, Jim.
My response was anly an attempt to share experiences and ideas to the question of the original poster Fallon.
The question of the verification of effectiveness of the training etc.etc. was debating many times in other threads of this forum.
Each organization can meet the clause in whatever way, the importance is that the way is effective to sustain the process/activity .
As we know, the standard does not say "how" to proceed.
Thank for your imput, hope my post, like the others of the Covers, was helpull for Fallon.

Click to expand...

I think your post was helpful.

Re: Compliance to ISO 9001:2000, 6.2.2 Competence, Awareness and Training

qusys said:

Rather than focusing on the record to meet this "shall", the intent is to have in place a process/activity according to that that the organization evaluates the effectiveness of the actions taken for training. If you want, a document filled shall be also considered a record, but this is not the point.
My question to you is: how did the organization evaluate the effectiveness of the training in all its shapes ( I mean, on the job training, class room training , training with industry,coaching, mentoring and so on).
If the organization set the required competencies, it should have done also to check for the effectiveness.
My experience is that the effectiveness can be assessed by the supervisor/manager of the employee attesting that he/she is able to perfmor his/her job after job evaluation performance.
This is an indirect way, but it could work, as well as the certification of techs/operators after a certain ojt or the results achieved by a manager who was assigned to projects/task.
Clearly it is required formation and training are required for this and if the results are in line or exceed expections, this could be an indirect way to measure the effectiveness of the training.

Click to expand...

I would like to exand on this just a bit. Also consider non-training methods to meet the requirement for competency. If you need someone competent in welding, you could train a welder, or you could hire someone who is already competent. But if you hire them, how do you really know they are competent. I mean no one every embellishes on applications or resumes, do they? Well, just as qusys says, use the same things for hiring, or transfering, or whatever as well.