Final answer:
A quality plan should document how the requirements for quality will be met, including constraints and criteria for evaluating design quality and the selection of suppliers and subcontractors as part of the engineering design process.
Step-by-step explanation:
A quality plan should define and document how the requirements for quality will be met. This involves identifying criteria and constraints that are essential in evaluating the quality of a design. Criteria refer to measurable values used to compare different designs, while constraints describe the conditions that must be met by the design and the design process. Moreover, a quality plan should include the approval status and selection criteria for suppliers and subcontractors, ensuring that every aspect contributing to the end product meets predefined quality standards.
The importance of documentation in the design process cannot be understated, as it justifies the decisions made during selection and ensures that the science behind the chosen solution is clear, including how various factors and weights of requirements and constraints were used to select the solution. Furthermore, as part of the engineering design process, evaluating solutions against the defined constraints and criteria is key to advancing a product that is not only feasible but also of the highest quality.