Quality Assurance vs Quality Control

Quality is an important factor when it comes to any product or services. quality is defined in a business context: Software functional quality reflects how well it complies with or conforms to a given design, based on functional requirements or specifications.

Quality assurance (QA) is a way of preventing mistakes or defects in manufactured products and avoiding problems when delivering solutions or services to customers; which ISO 9000 defines as "part of quality management focused on providing confidence that quality requirements will be fulfilled".

Quality control (QC) is a procedure or set of procedures intended to ensure that a manufactured product or performed service adheres to a defined set of quality criteria or meets the requirements of the client or customer. QC is similar to, but not identical with, quality assurance (QA).

Approach

Quality assurance is based on process approach.Quality monitoring and its assurance ensure that the processes and systems are developed and adhered in such a way that the deliverables are of good quality. This process is meant to produce defect-free goods or services which means being right the first time with no or minimum rework.

Whereas

Quality control is product-based approach. It checks whether the deliverables satisfy the quality requirements as well as the specifications of the customers or not. Depending upon the results, suitable corrective action is taken by quality control personals.

Sequence of operation

Quality assurance is done before starting a project.During assurance of quality or monitoring process, the requirements of the customers are defined. Based on those requirements, the processes and systems are established and documented.All this is done to ensure that the requirements of the customers are met stringently.So, assurance of quality is a proactive or preventive process to avoid defects

WhereasQuality control begins once the product has been manufactured.After manufacturing the product, the quality control process begins. Based on the customer requirements and standards developed during the quality guarantee process, the quality control personal check whether the manufactured product meets all those requirements or not. Quality control is a corrective process to identify the defects in order to correct them.

ActivitiesMost activities falling under the purview of quality assurance are

performed by managers, customers, and third party auditors. These activities include:

O Process documentationO Establishing standardsO Developing checklistsO Conducting internal auditsO Conducting external auditsO Failure mode effect analysis

WhereasEngineers, inspectors, and supervisors on the shop floor perform

quality control activities. Their activities includeO Performing and receiving inspectionO Final inspectionO In-process inspection

Interdependence

Both, Quality control and assurance of Quality are largely interdependent.The Quality guarantee department relies mostly on the feedback provided by the quality control department.

ExampleIf there are recurrent problem with the quality of the products, then the quality control department provides feedback to the quality monitoring and assurance personnel that there is a problem in the process or system that is causing product quality problems. Then the assurance of quality department determines the root cause of the problem and then brings changes to the process to ensure that there are no quality issues in future. Similarly, the quality control department follows the guidelines and standards established by assurance of quality department to check whether deliverables meet the quality requirements or not. Hence, both these departments are essential to maintain good quality of the deliverables.

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