Customer VDA Audit - We must provide refresher training?

jimmymustang06

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Admittedly, I do not know much about VDA. We are registered IATF 16949. We have a customer who audits us once every few years to ensure that we are compliant or whatever to VDA. This last time, the auditor's finding is that we don't have refresher training. The auditor said that we should be having refresher training once per year. I tried explaining that any revisions to work instructions are followed by signatures of all employees that are affected by the revision and that our router (customer/part-specific work instructions) are revised regularly. The routers are electronic and they are automatically displayed to each operator at each workcenter when they begin work on that particular job. So I guess my question is, what clause in VDA requires refresher training?

I should also state that we are Tier 2, basically a bulk commodity supplier.
 

jimmymustang06

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So, this is the auditors "objective evidence" ??

VDA 6.2 Element P6.3.1* asks the specific question, if the Employees are qualified to do the assigned job? and as a minimum requirement is to have Documented who is qualified for the task and activity and organization must document the formation, instruction, informative sessions and qualification tests done to the employee.
XXX Company required to provide refresher training to their employees.
Please, provide options for next meeting.


To this, I said "I do not agree with your interpretation of that clause, it makes no mention of re-testing, re-training or refresher training. We maintain documents identifying individuals that are qualified for each position, work instructions for each position and all equipment, on-the-job training documents and then we test at the end of OJT for a verification of the effectiveness of training. We have always met the requirements of IATF 16949, TS 16949 and before that QS 9000.
 

Golfman25

Trusted Information Resource
The customer is always right? This is beyond your pay grade. You need to go to the powers that be and let them know that this guy is proposing a requirement that doesn't exist. It will be a business decision as to whether they want to comply or get the customer involved. Good luck.
 

jimmymustang06

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You're right Golfman. I had a reply all typed up but decided to let the sales managers handle it and sent it to them. I answer to the president and they would typically let me handle something like this, but this is a rather large customer and i ain't about shooting myself. It just irks me to the core, i asked him how we would train operators that have been on the machine for decades. They know how to run that machine (1/2 century old) better than anyone else in the country. They helped write or work instructions. How am i going to train them?
 

jimmymustang06

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.. And I had a rather smart president that had a phrase i always remember "The customer isn't always right, but the customer is always The Customer.
 
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