Training, Tracking, etc.

Skills and training and who is competent in what is one of the areas that ISO has forced us to look at and we have acknowledged that we are lacking in this area. It would highly benefit us to implement a system to know who has been trained in what areas as well as helping us ensure that we cover all of the pertinent information when hiring a new employee and/or moving an employee to a different area. We determined that there are 2 matrices that would be necessary for this to be effective. The first would be a Training Matrix - explaining who is trained in what; the second would be a Skills matrix - explaining what training is required for each type of task/job. (Bob has completed training in "Steel Center - Nesting" - per the training matrix. The Skills matrix will identify that "Steel Center - Nesting" includes: Software: Pronest, Test running plasma, sheet metal movement, etc.) Sorry, getting into the weeds here....

We’d like the directors of each department (Operations, Production, Sales & Marketing, & Product Development & Support) to be responsible to keep the one Training Matrix file current for each of their employees. Is there something other than ‘the director said’ that is needed to verify training in certain areas?

For instance, our training matrix will be the place that houses all of the information regarding who is trained in what area. We have developed a 1-5 scale, depicting what type of training has been completed (1-no training necessary thru 5-capable of training others). Will an auditor ask to explain how we know that Bob scores a 4 in X category? If they ask that, would the “because his director scored him that way” suffice as an answer without a nonconformity?

The reason I am asking is to know whether or not we need some sort of paper trail that says X is trained in Y. My gut tells me that we don’t need it unless we think we need it; but I don’t want to get to the audit and find out otherwise!