Document control and training records for IATF 16949 plants.

What the standard expects, in plain language.

Documented information is covered in clause 7.5 of IATF 16949 and ISO 9001. In short, documents need to be identified and described, reviewed and approved before use, available where and when they are needed, protected, and changed in a controlled way. Records need to be retained and retrievable. IATF 16949 adds automotive requirements on top, including record retention (7.5.3.2.1) and the timely review and implementation of customer engineering standards and specifications and their changes (7.5.3.2.2).

Competence is covered in clause 7.2. IATF 16949 asks for a documented process for identifying training needs and achieving competence for people whose work affects product and process requirements (7.2.1), on-the-job training for people in new or changed responsibilities, including contract and agency staff (7.2.2), and defined competence for internal auditors (7.2.3). This is a plain-language summary, not the standard text. Read the current standard and your customer-specific requirements for exact wording.

What auditors tend to ask for: document control.

Auditors usually pick a work instruction in use at a station and work backward. The questions follow a pattern:

• Is this the current approved revision, and how does the operator know?
• Who approved this change, when, and what changed?
• Show me the previous revision and why it was replaced.
• What happens to printed copies when a revision changes?
• How are customer drawings and specifications controlled and kept current?
• Who can change this document, and who can only read it?

What auditors tend to ask for: training and competence.

For competence the auditor typically samples a person and asks for evidence that they were ready for what they do:

• What does this role require, and how did you decide that?
• What training did this person complete before working unsupervised?
• How do you know the training was effective?
• What happens when a procedure changes: who is told, and how is it recorded?
• How do you handle temporary, contract or agency workers?
• Who is qualified to perform internal audits, and how is that shown?

Where STRATUM Document Control helps.

STRATUM Document Control keeps documents in a controlled library with revision history, so you can retrieve the approved copy and earlier revisions. A change goes through submission and approval stages, with a change summary visible to reviewers and department manager, document control and quality manager review. Documents are stored privately in your company workspace, and locations and role-based permissions help you decide who can see and change what.

That gives you a straightforward way to answer the first three questions in the list above. It does not decide who your approvers should be, which customer requirements apply, or how printed copies are handled; those remain your process.

Where STRATUM Training helps.

STRATUM Training lets you create courses, assign them to employees with due dates, use quizzes and sign-off requirements, and keep completion records. Training tracks and job-title matrix rules help organize which learning belongs to which role, and pending, overdue, in-progress and completed states make follow-up visible to managers.

This supports evidence of what was assigned, what was completed and when. A quiz or completion record does not by itself show that someone can perform a task or that the training was effective. Practical assessment and effectiveness checks stay with your supervisors and your process.

What stays with you.

Software supports a quality system; it does not replace one. The decisions below are yours, and an auditor will expect you to be able to explain them:

• Which documents and records are controlled, and who approves them.
• Which customer-specific requirements apply and how changes to them are handled.
• How printed copies and documents used outside the workspace are controlled.
• Which tasks need practical demonstration or authorization, not only a course.
• How training effectiveness is evaluated.
• How long each record type is kept.

A sensible way to start.

Choose one document family and one job title. Put the current approved documents in the library, pilot a revision from submission to approval, assign a short course to the affected role, and then try to answer the audit questions above from the records. Whatever is hard to find tells you what to fix before a wider rollout. Document Control and Training can be used separately or together in the Compliance bundle.

Document control checklist for manufacturersHow to build a manufacturing training matrixSee plans and pricing

Want an experienced outside view?

STRATUM is built by CauseLogic, which performs internal audits for automotive suppliers. If you want someone to test your document and training evidence the way an auditor would, the audit services are separate from the software.

IATF 16949 internal audits (CauseLogic)VDA 6.3 process audits (CauseLogic)Customer audit readiness (CauseLogic)