Now more than ever, the development and use of control plans play a critical role in succesfully implementing a new process. In my past, I have seen varying ways that control plans have been implemented, but I still struggle a little when I try to find a really good example of control plan development.

To me, control plans need to be developed upfront in the development process. This is really important so that key product attributes (ctq’s) are constantly aligned with process control parameters. Some may think that developing control plans this early is a waste of time (since processes typically don’t get defined so early), but why not let the process itself be defined by the control plan?

So how do your organizations use control plans… I’d love to know…