My intent in the first couple of slides is to begin to acclimate you to the fact that many of the relationships between what your company does and the wording of the APQP and Control Plan manual require not only an understanding of the APQP and Control Plan manual but also of what they are trying to achieve. Laundry lists are provided, for example, of inputs and outputs. The fact that something such as DFA is on a laundry list does not mean it specifically is required. On the other hand, the requirement for a control plan is not negotiable - except for the format. As they talk about a control plan, the requirement is really the content. So - you may have the required content spread between multiple documents. Or - you may have the content of several documents (e.g.: the control plan and the process flow diagram) in one document instead of many.
In part because of this it is not always immediately evident, particularly within any given company, of what outputs are the result of what inputs. You have to look closely at the APQP manual and then at your company’s systems and documentation. This is where equivalencies come into play. For example, ask yourself: “How does our company come up with design goals (a Phase 1 output)?” Where are they documented? Some of your sources should be from the Phase 1 inputs laundry list.
Meeting the Intent
It is important to interpret APQP requirements in terms of the documentation and systems within your company. You also have to understand that when the APQP manual talks about a link via a process operation number on the control plan to the process number on the process flow diagram it may be that the control plan and the process flow diagram within your company is one and the same - a single, discrete document.
It is important to look at what they are attempting to do. In this case they are using the process number as a linkage between two or more documents as a way to ensure that ‘counterpart information’ is easily visible. This control is for this process step in the process flow which was evaluated for risk in this process FMEA line item.
In this presentation we will first be looking at the base requirements - mainly inputs and outputs to and from ‘Phases’ of the APQP process. From there we will go to looking closely at the control plan and related ‘required’ documentation. You will find that a number of times within this presentation I will be reinforcing the fact that there is as low probability that your company’s systems and documentation will exactly reflect what is in the APQP and Control Plan manual text. You have to look at the intent and you must identify ‘equivalencies’ within your company’s systems and documentation.