The Control Plan for the new project In Excel?

About the author: Fernando Revilla Andreo

Fernando Revilla is a quality management specialist with more than 30 years of experience in the automotive, manufacturing and urban mobility industries. He has led quality and continuous improvement projects in companies such as LECA Graphics – Lantero Group, Silence and Nissan, managing key processes from new model development to production optimization. His approach combines deep technical knowledge with a strategic vision to transform data into decisions that improve efficiency and customer satisfaction.

When Excel came into our lives

I know you won’t believe it, but I remember the day Excel was invented. Or rather, the day it came into our lives to become the management program of the industrial world and replace other programs such as Lotus 123. Back then, you would sit in front of your fluorescent green computer screen (Matrix-like) and transfer data one by one from paper to computer, and Excel would give you percentages and graphs.

My first experience with the Control Plan in Excel

In my first job I would prepare the monthly report and calculate the throughput of the production lines. On the 30th of each month, I would collect the production reports and pass the data to the computer (production hours, machine speed, quantities produced) and the program would calculate the performance of each machine (60%, 70%, 80%). He then passed the data to the Production Manager, who, with a cigar in his hand, reviewed the report and the machine-to-machine performance in detail.

The next day he returned the report to me with some corrections made in pen: “Machine 1 bring it up to 93%, Machine 2 to 98%, Machine 3…”. The truth is that once the “touch-ups” were done, the report was much better to present to the management.

Quality and management in the times of Excel

It was at that time, when people smoked in the offices and we did not know about Continuous Improvement, that Excel imposed itself as a management program. It was normal for all quality management to be carried out in the new tool, starting with the Control Plan, in French de Surveillance (Surveillance ). The Control Plan is the scheme of checks that are established to ensure that the process is producing correctly, delivering parts with the required quality as the product has been designed.

We can structure it in four steps (to which we will eventually add a fifth):

1. Receipt of Components
2. In-process inspections
3. Final Inspection
4. Laboratory Tests
5. Quality Wall – To be applied in product launching (Shoki Ryudo) or in crisis situations.

These five steps are essential to have a complete Control Plan, although in some cases the receipt of components is replaced by advanced supplier management or Concerted Quality.

An anecdote of “Concerted Quality” in a garage

This reminds me of the time I had a noise defect in some parts and the supplier explained that he would solve the problem by “applying 0.2 grams of grease with a vacuum dispenser”. During the visit to the supplier I asked how he ensured the application of such a small amount of grease. The supplier confirmed that he performed this operation at an “External Center” and that they checked for the presence of grease when receiving components, but the amount was ensured by the dispenser. The amount of grease was very important – it had to eliminate noise, but too much grease would stain the customer’s hands.

So I told the supplier that I wanted to visit the off-site facility to confirm the process: calibration of the dosing unit, periodic records and operator training. My request generated some commotion with the supplier, until the Plant Manager told me that he would take me to visit the Offsite Center himself.

After a five-minute drive, we arrived at the town square, with no factory or workshop to be seen there. We knocked on the door of a garage, which was opened by an elderly lady in a bathrobe and slippers.

She kindly showed us how she applied grease on a small table with the parts and the dispenser, among cages of rabbits, chickens and animal feed. After the demonstration, the lady offered us coffee and cookies. My companion asked me Do you want to see something else? I remembered the calibration, the training sheet, the records, but in the end I thought there was no need – the supplier already had Concerted Quality.

The difficulty of knowing the reality of the production process

Leaving aside special cases like this one, the great difficulty for the Quality Manager lies in the fact that he cannot be physically on the shop floor all day long, so he must rely on the data he receives to understand how production is going. This difficulty sometimes makes it difficult to interpret the reality of what is happening in his own house. The data provided by Excel is not enough.

Digitization of the Control Plan with Kapture.io

In 2019, Nissan, Tecnomatrix and Snop jointly developed a project within the framework of the Automotive Cluster CIAC, where we went on to fully Digitize the Control Plan of a welding cell located outside the supplier’s plant using Kapture.io.

The competitive advantages offered by the new digitized system are clear:

• Integration of all steps in a single system: Plan, Guidelines, Controls and Records.
• Ability to manage large data files (such as scanning of sets)
• Real-time and remote visibility of all results
• Alerts when data deviates from the average, before a problem arises
• Possibility of sharing the data obtained with the customer in any format

Total control and real vision of quality

Finally, what is most important: the Quality Manager knows at all times what the REAL quality situation of his process is. In other words, he really controls what is going on in his house, preventing anyone from being tempted to make up the reality with “fine adjustments” while he is smoking a cigar. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

The Control Plan is a key tool to ensure production quality. Excel marked a before and after, but today digital solutions such as Kapture.io allow to centralize data, detect problems before they escalate and offer total transparency, in real time and without losing control.