Quality Control Templates

A quality control template helps you establish and maintain production standards. Use a quality control plan template to define, plan, and document your quality control standards and to test output samples against your standards to ensure the delivery of high-caliber products. 

While quality assurance focuses on the process of managing the condition of your output, quality control focuses on verifying the excellence of production output. QC templates help you establish a process to create, maintain, and improve your production quality standards. By specifying QC standards, you define the caliber against which QC technicians, QC inspectors, project managers, developers, manufacturing personnel, and other QC roles can measure their output. With strong quality control, you can expect to see well-managed production processes and a higher grade of product, project, or service output.  

A quality control template is crucial to plan and document your quality control goals, production effectiveness, and testing efforts, as well as to determine room for improvement. 

Quality control templates typically include the following: 

• Quality Control Action Plan: Enter a high-level overview of your QC action plan for your project, product, or service. 
• Quality Control Change Process: Enter details relating to how you will document and communicate any changes or improvements you make to the QC process. 
• Quality Control Documented Standards: Enter details applicable to your QC practices and procedures. 
• Quality Control Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): Enter any details related to the KPIs you will use to measure the effectiveness of the QC objectives. 
• Quality Control Milestones: Enter details relating to how and when you will monitor QC and how you will meet and record milestones. 
• Quality Control Objectives: Enter QC objectives, including specifications, characteristics, uniformity, effectiveness, reduced imperfections, reduced bugs, cycle time, cost, resources, dependability, etc.
• Quality Control Responsibilities: Enter the names of any QC sponsors, technicians, project managers, and other resources necessary for your QC process. 
• Quality Control Steps: Enter steps in the process that relate to your organization’s operating practices or procedures, and how you will enforce high QC standards. 
• Quality Control Testing: Enter details related to your QC testing criteria, including inspection and audit programs, at various stages of production testing. 
• Quality Standards: Enter details for any product or industry quality control standards that apply to your project or product’s quality control action plan. 

While QC templates often differ, some also include the following more particular sections to further ensure high-level QC production output: 

• Decision or Corrective Action: Enter details of any decisions or corrective actions resulting from the QC testing data.  
• Desired Level: Enter the desired level of production perfection (e.g., 95%, 100%). 
• Lower Control Limit: In a QC chart, the lower control limit (LCL) line indicates the number below which any single data point is outside of statistical control because of “special cause” variation. 
• Mean: This is the daily average for each individual production imperfection. Often, the template will auto-calculate this figure. 
• Method of Control: Enter the QC method applied for controlling the quality of production output according to specified standards.
• Method of Measurement: Enter the QC method applied for quantifying the quality of production output, according to your expected standards.
• Number of Imperfections: Note the number of production imperfections in each sample. 
• QC Tech: Enter the name of the QC tech testing output samples against QC specifications. 
• Process Step: Enter the particular process step in the production process related to the item you are testing against QC.   
• Sample Mean: This is the average of all means for all production imperfections. This figure is also often auto-calculated by the template. 
• Sample Size: Enter the number of observations or replications in the production sample to compare with your QC standards. 
• Sample Standard Deviation: This is the measurement for the spread of data distribution between each production imperfection and the mean. This figure is often auto-calculated. 
• SOP Number: Enter the unique standard operating procedure (SOP) number related to instructions for monitoring QC progress and improvements.  
• Specifications: Enter the requirements that define the quality of your product, project, or service. 
• Standard Deviation: This commonly auto-calculated figure refers to the distribution of the production-imperfection data in relation to the means. 
• Upper Control Limit: In a QC chart, the upper control limit (UCL) marks the point beyond which a production sample is a “special cause” variation.