Supporting Site Certification - Employee Training Records Retention Location

[kreco]

We are currently in the process of transitioning to TS and my situation/ question is as follows: We have 2 plants, one in MA (headquarters) and one in CA. The CA plant is the "supporting site" and therefor must be audited to the requirements FIRST. CA plant is basically a Sales & Distribution function (they were fully operational mfg prod just over a year ago and mgt. decided to move their remaining product lines to MA). There are only about 10 employees on site, there are really no managers except one "Quality Engineer Supervisor" who has no support staff, a shipper/receiver, 5 or so sales people, and an engineer (he handles specs, drawings etc) who markets products that were manufactured at a "sister plant" from Malaysia and Japan. So basically all mgt. is located at HQ, including HR. My question is in regards to training records...a West Coast auditor will perform the audit in CA and an East Coast auditor will perform the audit in MA, would it be acceptable to say that the training records are submitted to HR located at corp. hq or do they need to be kept on site of the actual employees?

Any other input regarding supporting site certification would be appreciated...we are having a heck of a time combining documentation (they previously had their own QM, level II and III procedures as well as their own forms (even if they were similar in contents, they had their own control numbers etc). Fortunately we are on the same server and we can both read one another docs, however they are not both in the same control systems As the only "certified" lead auditor I must spearhead this effort from quite a distance.....

for any input!

 

[jmurph01]

i think if your question is "what is easy for the auditor" then having training records kept at the support site is the answer. if your question is "what is TS compliant" then i think having records at the head office would be fine. if it works for your company, then continue to do it that way. the auditor of the support site with have to have your auditor follow up on this during your audit, which shouldn't be a problem. as long as training records exist somewhere within the company, i don't think this will be a non-conformance.

 

[D.Scott]

I have never had this come up but I would tend to agree with Murph. As long as you address how and where training records will be handled in your system, there shouldn't be a problem. I think you should be able to produce the records requested at the site but I see nothing wrong with accessing them via email or fax. If needed, follow-up could be done in the HO audit.

Just a thought - you may want to consider keeping a local staff matrix showing what your local staff is qualified/trained to do. This could serve as a "quick reference" while all permanent records are held at HO.

Dave