Business Management

An organisation needs to define how it ensures that products and services meet pre-defined standards and this is often described in a quality plan. A quality plan outlines the quality practices, resources and sequence of activities relevant to a particular product, service, contract or project. Quality must be planned because the organisational management system must be able to stand above any individuals. Quality plans can also be developed for new products or processes as a means of controlling key activities and ensuring that practical problems can be identified and modifications introduced at the planning stage. Quality cannot rely on informal actions because non-conformance will eventually occur. When developing quality plans the following needs to be considered:
1) Customer requirements for quality plans;2) Independent certification bodies requirements for quality plans (if appropriate); and any3) Opportunities for improvement of the current quality management system or the potential to control quality parameters that are not adequately controlled.
Quality plans describe the methods for product inspection and testing. The methodology needs to include the:
a) product parameters to be measured that define "quality";b) inspection points in the process where the parameters need to be measured;c) standards or specification the parameter needs to comply with;d) documentation that includes the specification details;d) inspection and/or testing equipment required and the methods and frequency of equipment calibration to ensure the results are reproducible and valid;e) legal and/or market (customer) requirements for testing and demonstrating conformance to the specification;f) testing methodology; andg) skills, knowledge, degree of training and level of competence required for the personnel carrying out the inspections and tests.