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Benchmark Six Sigma Expert View by Venugopal R Let me attempt to narrate the unfolding of my understanding of control plan over past 3 decades…. Maybe, my first introduction to the term “control plan” was through ISO 9000 standards released during the late eighties. However, I had worked with an auto ancillary prior to that, where we had a collaboration with a Japanese organization for setting up manufacturing of an auto component, that I believe was for the first time in India. As part of the technology transfer, one of the key documents that we received was a lengthy, multiple folded, handwritten, tabulated document with all the process steps outlined, the quality characteristic for each stage of the process, the specifications, the method for evaluating compliance to the characteristic, and the sampling recommendations. I am not sure whether this document was named as “control plan” at that time, but I always remember this document, during subsequent stages of my career when I formally got introduced to control plan and whenever I associate with control plan. This only proves that this tool, whatever it might have been named in those days, was part of the good Japanese production practices, from very early times. And, more importantly, it found its place among ‘most important’ documents required for a technology transfer. Subsequently, the automotive industry came up with a set of QS9000 standards, along with which emerged the APQP (Advanced Product Quality Planning) standard. The APQP provides a good framework that gives clarity about the creation of Control plan and its linkages and sequence with respect to other methodologies. The APQP goes through five phases after a pre-planning phase 1. Plan & Define 2. Product Design & Development 3. Process Design & Development 4. Product & Process Validation 5. Feedback assessment & corrective action The Product Design & Development section includes DFMEA and Design verification plans. The Process Design & Development phase includes PFMEA and the proto control plan formation begins here. The Process and Product validation phase includes the Evaluation Methods, MSA, setting up Statistical Process Controls, all of which are inputs into the control plan. The Production Control Plan is an output of the APQP at Phase 4. It is evident from this approach that 'control plan' needs to have plan for: Systemic controls (for instance effectiveness of mistake proofing systems needs to be validated from time to time) Process controls (for example, a thermostat-based temperature control needs to be validated periodically) Human based controls Reliability of measurement systems Reaction plans for any non-conformances If we need to have dependable control plans for all the above, the inputs for the control plan has to evolve from the above-mentioned phases of APQP. Some of you may wonder why control plan should be seen only from the context of a Quality System associated with auto industry. It is for the conceptual clarity that may be obtained from the framework of APQP and how the control plan gets derived. The same concept can be adopted for any industry, including Information Technology services. The control plan will remain as a live document that will keep getting updated in line with the levels of knowledge maturity. I conclude by saying that although the concept of control plan has existed even several decades ago, we have many avenues that have brought very refined clarity on the pre-requisites, building and executing a control plan effectively.