AQAP 2105 Quality Plan guide: structure the plan around the contract.
A Quality Plan should explain how Quality will be controlled for the specific contract, product or service. The strongest plans connect requirements, responsibilities, processes, evidence and escalation rather than duplicating the organisation’s entire QMS.
Define the contract context first.
Capture the organisation, customer, contract, product or service, lifecycle stage, applicable Quality requirements and the controlled internal procedures that will be used. This prevents the plan becoming generic before the project-specific controls are even considered.
Reference the QMS — do not rewrite it.
Where an approved business process already controls contract review, document control, design, supply chain, production, inspection or corrective action, reference the controlled process and explain how it applies to the contract. Only add contract-specific controls where the existing QMS needs supplementation.
Make interfaces visible.
Quality Plans are particularly valuable at interfaces: customer requirements into planning, design into configuration, purchasing into supplier assurance, production into acceptance, and nonconformity into customer or authority communication. Define who owns those interfaces and what evidence demonstrates control.
Plan the evidence as well as the activity.
Think about what records will demonstrate that the contract was controlled: review records, risk decisions, configuration status, supplier evidence, inspection/test outputs, release records, corrective actions and management oversight.
Treat the plan as a controlled document.
The plan should evolve when the contract, product, organisation or control strategy changes. Revision control and approval should make it clear which version governs the work.
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