How Many Control Plans Are Required? We make over 100 products!

[Nadeem A.]

Control Plan

Hi All,

I am new to this forum and I have a question regarding control plan. If a company has more than 100 products then do we need to make a plan for each and every product?

Is there any option of avoiding this huge documentation? Or any easier way to document all products?

 

[D.Scott]

Welcome to the Cove Nadeem.

Your control plans can be generic across a family of parts/product as long as the parts/process have been reviewed for commonality.

The generic control plan can then be easily made part specific a PPAP submission if required.

I have seen some companies who state in their procedure that their job spec/work instruction is their control plan. When a "formal" control plan is required by the customer, one is prepared following the format outlined in the PPAP Reference Manual. I don't see a problem with this approach as long as the required information is in the job spec/work instruction.

I would look at what you make and see if you can group the products into families. Once you do that you may decide you don't have such a big job. If you still see a problem, ask again here.

Hope this helps

Dave

 

[Bill Ryan - 2007]

Welcome Nadeem!!

Dave is absolutely correct. If it makes sense to group "families" of parts into one Control Plan, by all means that is the way to go. That approach may still require a part by part review to insure all controls are covered in the CP.

One of the issues I ran into a few years back was differing part print revision levels (which belong in the header). What I came up with was a CP "cover sheet" listing each part and rev. level covered in that specific CP. Not a problem with our auditor(s).

Bill

 

[Nadeem]

Thanks Scott and Ryan,

That will help me in reducing the amount of work. I will try to build families of products but one more option which I would like to share at this forum. Can we build one generic company-wide Control Plan which begins from receiving and ends at delivery? This plan will talk about control parameters at different stages, Sampling Frequency, EvaluationTechnique, Control Method, Responsible Function and Reaction Plan. But it is department-wise rather than product specific.

For product controls, we can mention on the work instrcutions as Scott pointed out the approach.

Will there be any problem in this approach from audit view point?

 

[Bill Ryan - 2007]

This is just a quick, "knee-jerk" response. Perhaps more later.

Keep in mind that a well done PFMEA "writes" the Control Plan. If all your Failure Modes, Causes, and Controls are pretty much generic across ALL parts in your facility, you might be able to get by with a "company wide" CP (as well as PFMEA). If, however, you have differing Failure Modes/Causes/Controls for different part numbers, I think you may run into creating a monster document that could/would be "unfriendly" for use and upkeep.

Bill

 

[Nadeem]

Keep in mind that a well done PFMEA "writes" the Control Plan.

but Bill PFMEA is not a mandatory requirement of ISO 9000. For QS 9000 it is must. Are you arguing that whether 'PFMEA' is mandatory or not, we should develop PFMEA for effectivness in any case?

 

[Bill Ryan - 2007]

Nadeem,

Sorry, I gave that response while in my automotive mindset.

YES , the PFMEA will enhance the effectiveness/thoroughness of the Control Plan. As I mentioned in another thread, we may or may not go through the PFMEA process for a nonautomotive part. When the company decides not to perform a PFMEA there seem to be continual updates to the "Control Plan" (we use Inspection Instructions, as opposed to the formal Control Plan, for most, if not all, nonautomotive parts) which would probably have been addressed "up front" had we decided to use the PFMEA discipline.

Bill

 

[Nadeem A.]

Bill,

We hadn't decided PFMEA to use in the company and thanks for clarifying the points regarding the issue of piling huge documentation.