This article has affiliate links to our sponsor, monday.com.
monday.com is a cloud-based work operating system (Work OS) that businesses use for online collaboration. The product is essentially a live spreadsheet that multiple users can access at the same time.
Here is the outdoor furniture assembly control plan noted in our control plan page, done with monday.com (this took about 20 minutes to make) –
With laptops, tablets, and desktops now commonplace on the shop floor, moving from Excel to a product Work OS has several advantages –
Document Control – document revisions (in this case, a control plan revision), and auditor-acknowledgement fields can be added to confirm receipt and understanding of changes. Changes can be highlighted as conversations at the row level.
Workflow – Automatic workflows can be set up. For example, an auditor could check a box on a control plan indicating that an out-of-spec. condition was observed. The checked box would then trigger emails/alerts to appropriate people in quality, engineering, etc.
Related Documents – Documents and notes related to a particular line in a control plan can be attached to that row, which eliminates searching through shared drives or email. Here is an example of an Excel document attached to particular row –
Control Plan Effectiveness – Shop floor feedback to Quality/Engineering is a key element in ensuring that control plans are current and effective. monday.com facilitates this very easily with row-level conversations –
Conversations can easily be added to any row
Collaboration with Outside Parties – This is one of the biggest advantages of a cloud-based work OS. Outside parties such as vendors, contractors, and customers can access the document and provide input, with their editing rights closely controlled.
This capability allows control plans to be easily extended outside the four walls of the factor.
In addition to control plans, this tool is also very effective for making action item trackers, project plans, 8-D corrective action logging, and many other tools that are traditionally handled by by spreadsheets and email.
monday.com offers a 14 day free trial that will allow you to easily create the documents you have in mind, and test them out with other team members.