The Quality Advantage of Training By: Doug Stohr Have you ever assessed what the lack of training cost your company? Year after year, we plod along and think we'll get that training done next year, and it never happens. What did that cost us by not advancing our own skills as well as our workforce?? That is a good question and not many top-level managers can answer it. The first step in getting the Quality Advantage Cost is finding out what the absence of training costs. If your managers were to meet and look at waste and quality costs and run a root cause analysis, you might find that lack of a company training program and advancement of technical skills may account for many major quality misses and a lower level of productivity. I have had the pleasure of working in one company that advanced all of the process operators to a technician level with a structured 200-hour training approach. The operators were tested prior to qualifying for the training to make sure there was a base that would allow them to succeed in the training. The training was done outside the company using a very structured program customized to fit the company's needs. This training covered technical math, computer skills, SPC, FMEA, basic metrology, blueprint reading, safety and problem solving. What happened after this was amazing: productivity went up significantly because process decisions were made faster and action taken sooner. The operators were acting like mini process engineers and quality engineers. They were in complete charge of their processing point—making sure everything was run according to the structure and documentation. They made improvements on a daily basis by monitoring the equipment and output performance. A highly skilled and motivated workforce is a significant Quality Advantage. Employees gain motivation when they find they are advancing and contributing more within a company—they also see that management sees them as a valuable resource when they are allowed to get that next level of training. In today's "Quality is a given" world, training should never stop and should be fostered and treated as a regularly scheduled performance incentive in periodic reviews in every company. Every employee should have training performance goals and be held accountable for achieving these goals. Management should reward employees with training to advance their value to themselves and the companies they work for. One easy form of training is in-house seminars using contract experts. The training experts customize the training to fit your needs. A second training method is cross training and mentoring programs—growing your own technical workforce by using your company's in-house experts. Invest a little now in training and gain depth and technical resource expertise. When you stop investing in your company's human capital, this is the first step backward, resulting in the loss of the Quality Advantage of being the experts in all areas of your business. I strongly advise all companies to do a skills assessment, and then construct a formal company-wide training plan and policy with recognition and management endorsement. I often hear, "We don't have the time to train," and "Our budget did not include training." If this is the case, then take a real serious look at the cost and lost Quality Advantage of not training. Training motivates and advances an employee as well as providing the soft unseen advantages of gained productivity and higher customer satisfaction. Thus, I strongly advise that on-going training programs be part of your company culture and an on-going, fully-endorsed activity. Reward employees with training and the reward will come back to you time and time again. About the Author Doug has been Quality Manager at the following companies: Bergquist Company, Taber Bushnell, Sheldahl and most recently Director of Total Quality with Clore Automotive. Some of Doug's background and qualifications include Master Black Belt in Six Sigma and Six Sigma Trainer, Implementation of TQM Programs, QS9000 Registration, Measurement Systems Analysis Trainer, Advanced Quality Planning, Continuous Improvement, Design Of Experiments, Calibration, SPC Trainer and Mechanical Inspector. Comment on this article