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  • ADVANCED PRODUCT QUALITY PLANNING (APQP) - CONTROL PLAN


  • 03 September 2020
  • APQP is gaining momentum within the aerospace sector and more businesses are adopting the approach to minimise the risk and impact of production issues.
  • Although the tool can seem too much for smaller organisations, there are still some useful elements that can be extracted and adopted to any sized business, it just makes good business sense.
  • One of the key tools that are required for APQP and also of benefit as a stand-alone element for any business is the Control Plan. To use the words from AS9145 (The APQP Standard for the aerospace sector); ˇ°a control plan is a documented description linking manufacturing process steps to key inspection and control activities. The intent of a control plan is to control the design characteristics and the process variables to ensure product qualityˇ±.
  • Control plans, whether being used for APQP or not, are an excellent tool for monitoring product and process key characteristics and critical items to reduce process variation and as a result, reduces the number of errors and failures.
  • There is a misconception that control plans need to be complex and lengthy and include all identified risks to the process, in reality, if implemented correctly, they are easy to generate and you only need to focus on the key risks identified within your process.
  • Control plans should be used when you are implementing a new process, after risks have been identified and mitigated within the process, following process changes and when problems have been identified as a result of non-conformances. They should be a live document, not set and forgotten, especially as a result of any process or product changes.
  • Benefits of a Control Plan
  • As highlighted above, the control plan can be used for any manufacturing organisation, not just one who is aiming towards APQP.
  • Improves Product Quality
  • •Improves ability to prevent nonconforming products
  • •Identifies and manages sources of variation (input variables), and reduces variation in product characteristics (output variables)
  • •Reduces scrap and rework
  • Improves Efficiency/Cost
  • •Reduces waste in a process, improving throughput/manufacturing efficiency
  • •Reduces costs without sacrificing quality
  • Improves Customer Satisfaction
  • •Focuses resources on the product/process characteristics most important to the customer and the organisation
  • •Prevents nonconforming product from reaching the customer
  • Improves Process Management
  • •Establishes a plan for responding to changing process conditions
  • •Communicates changes in product/process characteristics, control method, and measurement methodology
  • •Monitors processes and assures that process improvements are maintained over the life cycle of the product
  • •Employ prevention rather than detection (e.g. use of error-proofing instead of operator dependant work or inspection)
  • Creating the Control Plan
  • Control Plan Inputs
  • In order to gain the most of out your control plan you need to have done some background work beforehand. If you are following the APQP Process then you would have naturally performed the necessary steps. The Control Plan is generated in phases 3 and 4 of the APQP 5 Phase process, phases 1 and 2 would have given you all of the necessary inputs.
  • If you are not following the full APQP process and would like to generate a control plan you need to identify the inputs to the control plan and in order to do that, you need to have completed some preparatory documents. If you have AS9100 already in place then a lot of these would naturally have been completed.
  • The inputs include (depending on your type of organisation):
  • •Process Flow Diagram (FPD, flowcharts, swimlanes, SIPOC, Turtles etc)
  • •Process Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (PFMEA)
  • •Design Reviews (If you are the design authority)
  • •Product Key Characteristics (From Design Failure Mode and Effects Analysis or could already be identified on the drawing if you are manufacturing only).
  • •Process Key Characteristics
  • •Measurement System Analysis (MSA)
  • •Special Characteristics Matrix
  • •Lessons learned from similar parts
  • •Cross-functional team knowledge about the process
  • •Field or Warranty Issues
  • The intent of the control plan is to align the plan with your process flow diagram and focus the attention on the high-risk process points as identified in your PFMEA. Is it advised to start the process as early on as possible during the initial stages of development, you should identify what controls you need to put in place to further reduce the risks within the processes.
  • Prevention is always better than cure so the control plan should focus on using tools such as error-proofing instead of operator dependant work or inspection.


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