A Quality Management Plan is a document that reduces costs and eliminates waste in quality management. It should have the necessary criteria and processes in place to ensure that the project meets the desired standards. Thus, the plan shows how to plan, manage, and control the quality level throughout the project.
Due to its nature and central presence in quality management, companies must pay more and more attention to this document. After all, the cost of doing business is always increasing, so it’s vital to ensure product quality — and avoid waste.
To help you achieve this goal, we have separated the main topics that will ensure that your quality management plan is a success.
What is a quality management plan?
The Quality Management Plan is used to monitor processes, ensuring that improvements and standards are carried out consistently throughout a company’s lifecycle.
In addition, it must detect issues of non-conformities and assist in planning corrective actions or improvements to address these issues.
The quality plan is developed to describe practices, features, or parameters necessary to ensure the quality of a system. In other words: it ensures that employees have the right information to execute processes according to quality standards, whether internal or external.
Finally, the plan should also include procedures that indicate how to act when non-conformities occur. Below, you can learn more about the main topics that the quality control plan should address.
- Quality Assurance: Detailing the processes and procedures that provide evidence of quality to the products/services being performed.
- Quality Control: Description of the techniques and operational activities performed by employees to meet quality requirements.
- Quality Management System: The set of processes, procedures, and rules of an area or a project to meet customer expectations and regulatory requirements.
Quality Management Plan Example
As you have seen, quality control plans should include instructions and methods for achieving acceptable results. Thus, its constitution will vary according to the company’s sector and its internal specificities.
The important thing is to ensure that everything related to quality control and promotion is included in your plan. To help with this task, below we have separated some of the main aspects that constitute a good example of a quality management plan.
Overview
As a first step, create an introduction with the background and scope of what is expected from the plan. Gather information such as what has already been done in the past and what are the expected objectives for this new version of the management plan.
Organizational structure
Then, describe who will be involved with creating, implementing, and maintaining the plan. To do this, point out which teams are responsible, the sectors involved and other areas that will be related to the project. Using organizational charts can be a great ally in the goal of transmitting this information clearly and quickly.
Research and feedback
Foresee in your planning what will be the ways to collect feedback, both internal and external, on quality assurance actions. In addition, also keep in mind the need to present ways to conduct research in the market and within the company itself to evaluate the processes and activities listed, as well as the effectiveness of all this.
Definition of responsibilities
Specify who will be responsible for quality management and what their responsibilities and authority will be. Along with this, define who will be responsible for certain tasks and processes, making clear the responsibilities, duties, and goals of each person involved.
List of Resources
After listing the areas involved in the project and those responsible for the activities, it is time to do the same regarding the equipment and resources used. In this regard, include items such as quality management software, checklists, and statistical methods, among others.
Performance standards and documentation
Define what documentation will be required for quality management. This often includes how and where quality records will be maintained and managed, as well as standardization in the storage and handling of this data.
Quality Control Procedures
This is one of the main parts of the plan. Here you should describe what processes and methodologies will be adopted to monitor and control quality. Among the most used are inspections, audits (external and/or internal) and tests.
Definition of deliverables and their acceptance criteria
Establishes which deliverables will be related to the quality management project. That is: what will be done concretely at the end of all this. These deliverables can be the results of reports, percentage of occurrences avoided/corrected, and satisfaction score in reviews, among others.
In addition, stipulate what criteria must be met for the project deliverables to be accepted as completed and by quality standards.
Required notifications and alerts
Stipulate what triggers will be necessary for there to be a non-compliance alert, as well as who will be notified about this occurrence and in what way/through which system.
Corrective and preventive actions
Of course, it is not enough to identify problems, it is necessary to know how to solve them. Therefore, include in your quality management plan all corrective actions to adjust for non-conformities. In addition, also list the measures that aim to prevent these situations from happening.
Training and courses
Along with preventive actions, you also need to foresee how employee training and qualifications will be carried out to promote quality. This ensures that everyone knows how to act in this regard and strengthens the notion of continuous improvement throughout the company.
In practice, the structure of your Quality Management Plan can follow the structure below:
- Objectives: Specifications, effectiveness, deadlines, costs, resources, utilization, and so on;
- Process steps: Practice, procedures, responsibilities and authorities;
- Documentation: required standards and specific instructions;
- Procedural tests: Inspection and evaluation;
- Change tracking: Historical data and information about changes and modifications;
- Training: Training and updating of employees on all previous processes and new good quality management practices.
3 Benefits of Having a Quality Management Plan
Once you understand how to create a quality management plan, you must also understand why you should do it. In other words: what this planning adds to your work and your company.
The main positive point is precisely having a structured and reliable way to manage all activities related to quality control – such as planning, documentation, reviews, training, audits, etc.
This ensures standardization and efficiency, in addition to bringing other benefits that you know more deeply below!
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Promote monitoring and testing
A quality management plan allows you to map and assess problems or non-conformities before they impact the progress of activities. For example, if your company provides support services, your tickets may include information about processes, procedures, and resources that can be tracked systematically. This gives you ways to improve ticket management.
Therefore, a good management plan encourages recurring tests to detect possible non-compliance problems, optimizing the company’s operation as a whole.
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Strengthen the prevention mindset
The secret to compliance is to bet on preventive activities. With a management plan, you can implement these activities along with training, materials, and process documentation.
And even if non-conformities occur, having a plan facilitates the reassessment and/or restructuring of all practices connected to them. This makes it easier to correct and resume compliance.
To maximize this benefit, build mechanisms that allow employees to participate in the elaboration of prevention actions, strengthening their dissemination throughout the corporation.
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Facilitate continuous improvement
Finally, using a quality management plan makes it easier for your company to be in a perpetual process of improvement. This is because it helps to create a constant cycle of changes to improve deliveries and results.
Whether through incremental changes made in small doses or through entire projects that seek to identify and initiate changes in processes, this practice ensures that your company does not stand still in time and is always up to date on good practices, new regulations, and quality management tools.
Extra tip: the easiest way to do quality management
Quality strategies are essential for continuous improvement. Achieving excellence in this management requires the use of solutions that bring maximum efficiency.
So, if you want more efficiency and compliance in your operation, see how our experts can help you identify the best strategies for your company with SoftExpert solutions. Talk to us today!
