Thought I’d see how everyone else is keeping track of your vendor certifications (to make sure you have the latest version on file)? Right now we added a Bonus Column on the Vendor file (Yes, No) called ISO Certified. For all vendors that have a certification, we have added a record to Tools and assigned it to a Maintenance user so they will get a reminder when the certificate expires. We are attaching the certs to the tool record. This is not the cleanest way as there is no way to link a tool to a vendor and I’m storing certs on the “tool” and not the vendor records (don’t want to have to upload in 2 places). Just wanted to see if someone else has come up with a better way!
Robin,
I like your method. Hadn’t thought about using the tools dB in that way before…
Another option is to set “notes” reminders associated with a supplier/vendor. We created a “supplier quality” Note Type in notes. You can choose when you want the notification to occur and CETEC emails you a calendar event on the reminder date that you can add to your calendar.
Also, in the future, you can search through all your notes based on these Note Types (edited here: …/tablemaint/NoteType/edit) . If you wanted to be more specific, you could create a Note Type called “Supplier certifications”
We actually looked at using reminders and doing that same thing with a type, but if someone ignores their calendar I need a better way to oversee the outstanding ones (which tools allows me to do). Plus I can reset the dates in tools by “performing a validation” versus having to add a new note with a new reminder each time it renews… I do like the idea that it is attached to the vendor record with the reminder. But reminders are only for the person who enters the notes… I need to assign it to someone else so I’m not stuck with the follow-up task!
I agree. we really like using the tools calibration date setting to remind us for Calibration services, PM’s and other equipment servicing tasks…Just never thought to use it for Supplier certifications. You can probably even use it for “employee training records” for that matter as well…
Yep… we use it for our IPC certification, welding verification records. Anywhere you need time sensitive follow-up and a specific record that you can access and point to… now if Cetec will expand the functionality and let me link tools to vendors or customers in addition to just part records!!!
so do you create the “employees” as tool records or do you create the Certification type as the tool record?
Examples of Tool Type are: IPC Certification, Welding Verification, Vendor Certification
The “tool” record is the employee/certification combination. Here are 2 examples. I like that there are so many fields for me to track additional information. On the vendor cert side I’m using their cert # as my serial number, the specifics of the actual cert in the model number (ISO 9001:2015, etc.), Partnum is the vendor name
very slick. Have you considered capturing QMS Training records using this process? I’ve been looking at LMS systems for capturing training records but maybe this might be good enough?
I have considered it but I can’t seem to make it fit the bill in my head. Believe me, we continue to struggle with QMS Training records and are too small to justify LMS systems. (I actually mentioned to Cetec at the last user conference that training tracking would be a great area for enhancement. They already have some of the data when a user starts/stops work on a specific location!)
Anyway, problem I see with trying to use tools for Training records:
- For most of our training, we train on a task and then it’s considered complete (not a certification that is date driven). Tools are a date driven database (meaning that’s the advantage it provides).
- Training records need a 1-to-many sort of table/setup. (You have 1 user with many training topics or 1 training class to many users). Tools are 1-1 (recurring with calibrations, etc. but still 1-1).
- Tools do not have any real reporting capability so even if I set up a “Tool” as a training topic and used Perform Maintenance with a type of “trained” or “attended” and recorded the employee(s) names in the Maintenance Notes field, I couldn’t pull this data back out and get a list or training log (which our auditors ask us to provide).
Let me know if you see something I’m missing!
Ditto. I was going to mention the same thing, about managing QMS records along with being to small to justify an LMS system. We’re evaluating TalentLMS SaaS but the part that gets us is the time it takes to create the training material.
We have the same issue. For now, we are using our old manual QMS system. We would love to see a feature in cetec that helps maintain vendor certifications.
Hi Everyone!
Wanted to jump in here and mention that Cetec is committed to a more streamlined method of managing training records in the system. At this point, it is on our roadmap, and we are looking forward to releasing it in the future.
At this point, we have no scheduled timeline for it.
Thanks, everyone!
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