The true value of the Control Plan
Great questions of Quality 4.0: How to confirm that the light bulb goes off when you close the refrigerator door? In other words, how to ensure that things work, when you are not checking that they work: Control Plan 4.0.
Easy. You put a camera inside the fridge, record what happens and send the information to your cell phone. I like to trust what they tell me. But for important things I prefer to have proof. For example, when I have a supplier checking parts thousands of miles away, why trust what they tell me when I can have the inspection results in real time?
From paper to digitization of controls
When I hear about the “Control Plan”, the first thing that comes to my mind is a horizontal sheet, full of rows and columns with controls and tolerances. Controls that will generate a written record of results, which someone on the team will enter in the monthly or weekly report.
Control Plan 4.0: “For the important things I prefer to have proof”.
If my business consists of making potato omelets, I will have records with the weight of the potatoes or the temperature of the oil. That is, if the tortilla manufacturing is done in my Tortilla Factory. Because if the operations take place outside the four walls of the factory, I can forget about it, can’t I?
We tend to think that Manufacturing is only that which takes place within the four walls of my Plant and that any process performed outside is beyond our control. Therefore, we will rely on the good faith of suppliers who manufacture parts of our product.
Why not consider these processes as integral parts of the 4.0 Control Plan?
Why settle for a small sample when we can have 100% of the controls performed?
Let’s be clear. If a process is performed in our factory, we ensure that the entire company puts Quality and the Customer at the center. But if the process is performed outside the factory, our ability to ensure quality is at risk. We must change our perspective on the possibilities of a Control Plan as we understand it at Kapture.io.
The idea is to use digitalization to act as a Poka Yoke. Kapture.io offers a very high versatility, allowing us to generate any control plan we can imagine:
- Outsourcing: We outsource parts of our manufacturing process outside the plant.
- Supplier control: Exhaustive and immediate information on our suppliers in Barcelona or Thailand.
- Quality Controls at the customer: We ensure the optimal installation of our products at the end customer.
These processes outside our factory can have a direct impact on our production or worse, on the end customer.
Kapture.io as digital Poka Yoke
Kapture.io works as a Poka Yoke and establishes in a simple way a Control Plan that ensures aspects such as:
- Follow-up on compliance with the Control Plan: I am sure that what has been planned has been done.
- Alarms in case of problems: If a process is failing, I am the first to know.
- Correct compliance with the inspection: Time controls (start and end time) or photos showing the correct service
Benefits of a digitized control plan
- Eliminate errors arising from manual records.
- Detect deviations before they reach the end customer.
- Ensure traceability of each inspection.
- Strengthen trust with suppliers and customers.
- Reduce costs associated with non-quality.
The digitization of control plans is not a futuristic option, but a current necessity for any company seeking competitiveness. With Kapture.io it is possible to transform sporadic controls into an agile , reliable and transparent system.
