Training Records for Errors (ISO 9001)

[JLang]

Hello Covers,

Wanted some input on a question that has come up at our company recently. What is a good way to handle training records specifically related to errors? In other words, what should we do if we have an error because employee X pulled the wrong parts from the wrong location, or employee Y accidently ordred part 1 instead of part 2? (We are a Distributor)

I know ISO 9001 states that employees must be competent and appropriate records must be maintened, but I wanted to see how some of you handle these types of situations.

Is a full blown training document needed each time an error is made? Right now I'm tossing around the idea of creating a spreadsheet that tracks the department the mistake was in, who did it, where it was caught, when it was caught, and when the re-training took place. i.e. Billy in purchasing ordered the wrong part, we caught it in receiving on 9/5/12 and he was re-trained on 9/6/12.

Would a document like this be sufficient? I like the idea of something like this because it allows us to track mistakes by department or personnel, and see how many got through to the customer or were caught internally.

Right now our re-training consists of calling the person over and having them re-do the work, but it is not tracked or noted in any manner.

What are your thoughts? Would the spreadsheet work? Any ideas are appreciated.

 

[somashekar]

Hello Covers,

Wanted some input on a question that has come up at our company recently. What is a good way to handle training records specifically related to errors? In other words, what should we do if we have an error because employee X pulled the wrong parts from the wrong location, or employee Y accidently ordred part 1 instead of part 2? (We are a Distributor)

I know ISO 9001 states that employees must be competent and appropriate records must be maintened, but I wanted to see how some of you handle these types of situations.

Is a full blown training document needed each time an error is made? Right now I'm tossing around the idea of creating a spreadsheet that tracks the department the mistake was in, who did it, where it was caught, when it was caught, and when the re-training took place. i.e. Billy in purchasing ordered the wrong part, we caught it in receiving on 9/5/12 and he was re-trained on 9/6/12.

Would a document like this be sufficient? I like the idea of something like this because it allows us to track mistakes by department or personnel, and see how many got through to the customer or were caught internally.

Right now our re-training consists of calling the person over and having them re-do the work, but it is not tracked or noted in any manner.

What are your thoughts? Would the spreadsheet work? Any ideas are appreciated.

An error is an effect and the cause is always not lack of training. It could also be a sign of poor training effectiveness, or a HR selection issue.
So what is the use when you take training on the effect.
I would suggest you quickly correct the errors and trend the errors in order to find the cause and look at training as one of the corrective action.

 

[Jen Kirley]

What you will find here is that training is among the last of the actions considered. Before training, and its record of whatever kind is transacted, in past discussions about reducing process errors we have advocated first to seek a full understanding of the problem.

The concept is a simple change from telling someone (s)he has erred, to asking him/her - or in teams or groups if more than one person uses the process) what can be done differently to avoid the error. That may uncover opportunities to error proof by way of color coding or making selecting the wrong part difficult by, if possible grouping together only those parts that are used along with each other. This is just an example - many more ideas may be possible.

In either case - telling or asking - the communication is taking place. What is different is the type of information being delivered, and maybe effectiveness too. How it's recorded makes almost no difference, but I would find it useful to chart errors and maybe sort by types of errors, and notice impacts when the asking/telling is done. Was it effective? Then ask, why was it effective or not? Like in tennis or golf, I feel sure the follow through is just as important as any other part.

I hope this helps!

P.S. I have also had experience with error being introduced by Dyslexia, which can be remediated in part with specialized training but also through intervention, some of which can be very inexpensive.

 

[Crusader]

Hello Covers,

Right now I'm tossing around the idea of creating a spreadsheet that tracks the department the mistake was in, who did it, where it was caught, when it was caught, and when the re-training took place. i.e. Billy in purchasing ordered the wrong part, we caught it in receiving on 9/5/12 and he was re-trained on 9/6/12.

Would a document like this be sufficient? I like the idea of something like this because it allows us to track mistakes by department or personnel, and see how many got through to the customer or were caught internally.

What are your thoughts? Would the spreadsheet work? Any ideas are appreciated.

My registrar would love that idea. Go with it and time will tell if it proves to be useful to you. And, it would show your registrar that you're being proactive.

I like it. May I borrow?


Oh yeah..... Hi Covers! Just a pop-in.

 

[PFraser22]

Could investigating if the lettering or numbering of the parts is too small or does the person need new glasses?

 

[kgott]

Hello Covers,

Wanted some input on a question that has come up at our company recently. What is a good way to handle training records specifically related to errors? In other words, what should we do if we have an error because employee X pulled the wrong parts from the wrong location, or employee Y accidently ordred part 1 instead of part 2? (We are a Distributor)

I know ISO 9001 states that employees must be competent and appropriate records must be maintened, but I wanted to see how some of you handle these types of situations.

Is a full blown training document needed each time an error is made? Right now I'm tossing around the idea of creating a spreadsheet that tracks the department the mistake was in, who did it, where it was caught, when it was caught, and when the re-training took place. i.e. Billy in purchasing ordered the wrong part, we caught it in receiving on 9/5/12 and he was re-trained on 9/6/12.

Would a document like this be sufficient? I like the idea of something like this because it allows us to track mistakes by department or personnel, and see how many got through to the customer or were caught internally.

Right now our re-training consists of calling the person over and having them re-do the work, but it is not tracked or noted in any manner.

What are your thoughts? Would the spreadsheet work? Any ideas are appreciated.

I would be hesitent to measure or count negatives. Far better to do as the other posters have suggested and talk to the people to see what you can lean about why the errors are occuring and try to error proof the matter. Then document the improvement effort that has taken place and try to quantifiy the improvement also if possible.

 

[Jon Nonns]

Hello Covers,

Wanted some input on a question that has come up at our company recently. What is a good way to handle training records specifically related to errors? In other words, what should we do if we have an error because employee X pulled the wrong parts from the wrong location, or employee Y accidently ordred part 1 instead of part 2? (We are a Distributor)

I know ISO 9001 states that employees must be competent and appropriate records must be maintened, but I wanted to see how some of you handle these types of situations.

Is a full blown training document needed each time an error is made? Right now I'm tossing around the idea of creating a spreadsheet that tracks the department the mistake was in, who did it, where it was caught, when it was caught, and when the re-training took place. i.e. Billy in purchasing ordered the wrong part, we caught it in receiving on 9/5/12 and he was re-trained on 9/6/12.

Would a document like this be sufficient? I like the idea of something like this because it allows us to track mistakes by department or personnel, and see how many got through to the customer or were caught internally.

Right now our re-training consists of calling the person over and having them re-do the work, but it is not tracked or noted in any manner.

What are your thoughts? Would the spreadsheet work? Any ideas are appreciated.

In my experience, retraining for error events is seldom effective. Getting to the root of the problem (or at least to contributing causes) and utilizing error-proofing is much more enlightening and fruitful. However, a listing such as you are suggesting might help you greatly in determining trends in the error events and lead you further down a path of understanding. I am always cautious about calling incidents such as these training events since it is difficult to measure effectiveness of that training. The ability to track and trend these events will allow you the ability to show continuous improvement of your error events, aid in driving cost of the product ddown (doing something right the first time is always cheapest), and show effectiveness of your error-proofing that you perform.

Just my .

Jon

 

[Mikishots]

My registrar would love that idea. Go with it and time will tell if it proves to be useful to you. And, it would show your registrar that you're being proactive.

I like it. May I borrow?


Oh yeah..... Hi Covers! Just a pop-in.

Proactive? No. This is purely reactive. And if I was auditing this process, I'd want to see if the re-training was effective, not simply a record saying it was done on a certain date.

 

[Jon Nonns]

Proactive? No. This is purely reactive. And if I was auditing this process, I'd want to see if the re-training was effective, not simply a record saying it was done on a certain date.

I completely agree. Showing record of retraining is only the first step. The real challenge and closure of the event is showing effective.