Human resources based improvement strategies—the learning factor

Processes usually are defined according to the underlying standards (ISO 15504, ESA ECSS, ISO 9001, etc.) and are described with process steps to be performed by roles and producing results (outputs) from well‐defined inputs, methods and tools to support the process steps, and activities to be done and skills to be covered by roles (Messnarz Ret et al. Proceedings of the 6th European Conference on Quality Assurance, Vienna 10–12 April 1999). Assessments and the resulting improvement initiatives focus much on the processes and less on the human resources based strategies. In this article we want to emphasise that both issues are of equal importance, the processes and the highly skilled human force. We also highlight a currently running European strategy (European Qualification Network (EQN)) and a funded technology project PLATO which support the establishment of such a human resource and learning strategy in Europe.