Waste-management QA training and motivation

Early in the development of a QA Program for the Waste Management and Geotechnical Projects Directorate, thought was given to establishing a QA Training Program commensurate with the needs and appropriate to the motivation of a staff of more than 130 scientists and project leaders. These individuals, i.e., researchers rather than hardware designers, had no prior experience with QA programs, and from their perception generally did not believe that such controls had any merit. Therefore, historically proven approaches to QA training had to be quickly modified or totally discarded. For instance, due to the mobility and diversity of backgrounds of personnel at SNL, the QA training program had to accommodate many different levels of QA maturity at any given time. Furthermore, since the application of QA to R and D was continuing to profit from project-specific lessons learned, these improvements in the QA program had to be easily and quickly imparted in the general staff's evolving awareness of QA. A somewhat novel approach to QA training has been developed that draws heavily upon SNL's existing In-Hours Technical Education Courses (INTEC) studio capabilities. This training attempts to accommodate individual staff needs and to ensure the required QA skills and awareness for the diverse types of programs addressed