Control Plan is a document that describes the method required by the quality control to assure the desired output. It helps the operator or quality inspector to understand what he must do in each process phase, how to do it, how to measure it, and in case of a process deviation what he should do. Also, a Control Plan is a must-have for the quality team to keep everything under control and to ensure a safe process. It’s also important to remember, that a Control Plan does not replace a checklist or a measurement sheet used by the operator. It’s more like a supporting document which accumulates all the information regarding checklist and inspections. Control Plan is a live document, whenever changes occur in the process flow, it must be updated.
There are 3 types of Control Plans:
- Prototype- includes dimensions, material, tests to be completed during the build;
- Prelaunch- includes dimensions, material, tests after prototype and prior before the product launch in series;
- Series Production- includes a detailed description of the product and process specifications, list of controls, measurement, methods, monitoring system;
In the next part, we will discuss the structure of a Control Plan and how we fill it.
The template for Control Plan you can download from here:
We discuss separately the header and the main part of the format, because of its complexity. The header section gives us general information about the document, such as identification number, date, revision, etc. Also, we could find information about the supplier and about the team, responsible for creating and keeping the document up to date.
In the next image you can see the header section with an explanation of each box.
The main part contains the detailed process and product characteristics/ specifications, that may need to be controlled and monitored. These characteristics could be dimensions, tolerances, tool or machine settings, etc. In the image below is the body section explained.
An example with a part drawing you can find right here. Please feel free and use this example wisely.
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