1.0 The problem
Both documents are approved. They still disagree.
Alignment failures are rarely the result of carelessness. They accumulate. The PFMEA is revised after an escape but the Control Plan is not. A frequency is relaxed on the floor and the plan is updated, but nothing goes back into the risk analysis. An operation is moved outside and one document follows it. Each step is reasonable; the end state is a package where the risks you documented and the controls you run are two different sets.
This matters commercially as well as technically. It is one of the most common findings in customer supplier-quality audits, and it is one of the easiest to demonstrate — a reviewer needs only to pick three high-severity rows and ask where the corresponding controls are.
- Deliverable
- Findings register with dispositions, plus corrected PFMEA and Control Plan where correction is in scope
- Typical inputs
- Current PFMEA, current Control Plan, released routing, inspection documentation, recent nonconformance history
- Formats
- Findings in your audit or corrective-action format; corrected documents in your existing templates
- Starting price
- $1,000
- Scales with
- Number of rows, number of operations, whether correction as well as reporting is included
- Often used for
- Audit preparation, customer supplier-quality reviews, corrective-action responses, pre-production checks
- Related
- PFMEA, Control Plans, Production Readiness
2.0 The trace
What gets traced, in which direction
The review runs the chain forwards and backwards. Forwards finds risks without controls. Backwards finds controls without justification. Both are findings.
Process Flow
Does the flow contain every operation in the routing, and does the PFMEA analyze every operation in the flow?
PFMEA
Are the failure modes ones this process can produce, and are severities consistent across operations for the same effect?
Risk controls
For each significant risk, is there a named prevention or detection control — and is it distinguishable which is which?
Control Plan
Does each of those controls appear in the plan, at the operation where it acts, with a method and a frequency?
Inspection and process control
Is the control executable as written — equipment available, feature accessible, frequency achievable in the run?
Reaction plan
When it fails, does the document say what happens, and does the person named have the authority to do it?
3.0 Findings
The nine gaps this review is built to find
Each finding is recorded with its location in both documents, the reason it matters, and a proposed correction you can accept, modify or reject.
PFMEA risks without corresponding Control Plan controls
A failure mode carries a control in the analysis that never became a row in the plan. In production, nothing is checking it.
Control Plan characteristics without identifiable risk or control justification
The plan checks something the risk analysis never identified. Sometimes that is a legitimate customer requirement; often it is inherited inspection that costs time and protects nothing.
Missing reaction plans
A characteristic has a limit and a frequency, but no defined response when the result falls outside it.
Missing inspection methods
The characteristic is listed and the frequency is set, but how it is measured is left to whoever is holding the part.
Incorrect inspection frequencies
Frequency does not match the risk, the run length or the detection the PFMEA assumed — in either direction. Over-inspection is a finding too.
Missing special-characteristic controls
A characteristic is designated special on the drawing or by the customer, but is controlled no differently from anything else in the plan.
Process steps missing from quality documentation
Operations that exist on the floor — deburr, wash, handling, outside processing — appear in neither document.
PFMEA processes that do not match actual production
The analysis describes a sequence, cell or method that has since changed, which invalidates the controls derived from it.
Engineering requirements not adequately represented in manufacturing controls
A drawing note, specification callout or contractual requirement never made it into the process documentation at all.
4.0 Method
How the review is run
Document inventory
Establish which revisions are current, and whether the routing they reference is the one in production today.
Row-level trace
Each PFMEA row is traced to Control Plan rows and back, with operation and characteristic references recorded.
Findings register
Every disconnect is logged with location, category, why it matters and a proposed correction.
Review with your team
You disposition each finding. Some are real gaps, some are deliberate decisions that were never written down — both outcomes are useful.
Correction
Where correction is in scope, AiroQue revises both documents so they agree, and records what changed.
Re-issue
Documents returned with revision identification and a change summary suitable for your document-control process.
Report it, or fix it
Some customers want an independent assessment they can act on internally. Others want the documents corrected and returned. AiroQue scopes either — and the boundary is set before work begins, not negotiated afterwards.
Findings format
Delivered as a standalone register, or written directly into your internal audit, gap-assessment or corrective-action form so it can be processed through your existing system.
Finding classification
Categorized by your severity or risk convention if you have one, or by a simple critical/major/minor scheme agreed at the start.
Correction boundary
Report-only, report plus corrections to a defined subset, or full correction and re-issue of both documents.
Evidence depth
Row-level references for internal use, or a fuller evidence trail suitable for submission in a customer corrective-action response.
5.0 Adjacent services
Related work
Send both documents and the current routing
AiroQue will scope the review against the number of rows and operations involved, and tell you up front whether correction should be included or handled separately.