When a nonconformance, an escape or an audit finding involves a person, the first proposal is often to retrain them. The Retraining After a Quality Failure Record (G03) puts a gate in front of that proposal. It asks nine questions about the person and the job, classifies the failure, and sends anything that is not a genuine knowledge or skill gap back to the corrective action.
Why retraining is never the root cause or the corrective action by itself. Training fixes a person not knowing, or not yet being able to do, what the job requires. Most errors by trained, experienced people are not that: they are slips and lapses that the job made possible, through a missing prompt, look-alike programs or parts, a check that cannot see the defect, or a shift with nobody to ask. Retraining leaves those conditions in place, so the error waits for the next person. It cannot be shown to work when the person already knew the method. And it teaches the shop that mistakes lead to someone being singled out, which stops the near-miss reports that would have warned you. So retraining supports an action that changes the job; it never replaces one.
| The failure was | Retraining | What changes the job |
|---|---|---|
| A knowledge gap | Yes, for everyone in the same position | Why the gap existed: the change process, the new-hire path |
| A skill gap | Yes: finish the training and the assessment | Why they were working alone at that level |
| A slip or lapse | No | Error-proofing, a check that catches it, fewer interruptions |
| A method or instruction problem | After the method is fixed, for everyone | The method and the instruction |
| Equipment, tooling, program or gauge | Rarely | The equipment, tooling, program or gauge |
| Workload or environment | No | Staffing, scheduling, handover, the workplace |
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A management aid, not certification or a registrar audit. Using it does not by itself show conformity to AS9100D or any other standard, and your customers' requirements may add to it.
Clause numbers refer to AS9100D (SAE AS9100 Rev D) unless another document is named. The standards' text is not reproduced here: use your own licensed copy.
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