A quality control plan offers a method for ensuring products, services or employees have reached a specific standard. Quality control is usually the last step a product goes through before being sent to the customer and consists of a series of systems and procedures to ensure the highest standards have been met. Quality control is in place to make sure the customer is satisfied with the final product and a company’s reputation remains intact. It also determines the root source of problems and helps to fix them and ensure the corrections are permanent.

Developing a Quality Control Plan

Evaluate how you plan to test quality. Consider factors such as how often you plan to test, where along the assembly process you will test, how long the process will take and any resources required. Major phases or checkpoints of a product’s creation need to be tested before moving forward.

Reference your company’s mission statement, business plan or overall vision to determine your end-goals for a product. Use these resources to help you decide what needs to be tested to meet quality assurance.

Create a step-by-step process for testing a product. Identify the different aspects of the product. If necessary, consider different scenarios for the use of your product and test as many as possible to ensure quality through each.

Experiment with the quality control tests. Revise the process as necessary. If a product requires more testing in one area, add this step to the quality control plan. If a test is noted to be unnecessary, remove it and continue to refine the process.

Revise and review the quality control plan to continually pinpoint problem areas. With every new product, add a new sub-test to the quality control plan.