Skills and Training for Engineers: How are your Engineers selected

I am reviewing procedures of a AS9100 Rev C Company and I actually found this statement in the skills and training for Engineers:

"Executive Management, or applicable designate, assigns the title and responsibility of an ?Engineer? as they deem worthy. Once the title of ?Engineer? has been bestowed, that individual has the responsibility to perform the duties of the engineering department as noted in our Quality Instructions and Procedures."

Knighthood for Engineers that are worthy! LOL

Re: How are your Engineers selected

J Allen said:

I am reviewing procedures of a AS9100 Rev C Company and I actually found this statement in the skills and training for Engineers:

"Executive Management, or applicable designate, assigns the title and responsibility of an ?Engineer? as they deem worthy. Once the title of ?Engineer? has been bestowed, that individual has the responsibility to perform the duties of the engineering department as noted in our Quality Instructions and Procedures."

Knighthood for Engineers that are worthy! LOL

Click to expand...

This was obviously intended as a CYA mechanism to account for a person on the payroll whose credentials might be questioned. In some states of the US there are legal requirements for using "engineer" as a title, and in others it's pretty much anything goes. In the end it all comes down to competence.

Re: How are your Engineers selected

Someone in your organization got burned by an old school auditor that manufactured a finding against ISO9001 6.2.2 Competence, training and awareness, The organization SHALL a) determine the necessary competence for personnel performing work affecting conformity to product requirements.

Some auditors like to generate this finding when they cannot find anything else but they do find that you have engineers that lack engineering degrees. My quality system job description for engineers does not list an engineering degree as a requirement. It refers to a skills list that does require competence in, say, Solidworks, in order to be allowed to generate drawings using Solidworks.

Despite this, I had an auditor that manufactured this finding. Within a week of this auditor's exit from the building, the finding was rescinded by our registrar. This auditor is not allowed back in our facility.