Difference Among Quality Control, Quality Assurance & Quality Management System

Quality Control – Verifying the Quality of the Output

Quality Control is the most basic level of quality management. It includes all activities of inspecting, testing, or checking a product to ensure it meets the requirements. The intent of QC is to identify any issues—and either fix them or eliminate them—to make sure the end result is as expected. QC is typically conducted re-actively, at the end of the process.

The main limitation of quality control is that it’s very product oriented and doesn’t improve quality or make quality more efficient—it only focuses on identifying instances where quality is lacking. What’s more, you only find out about issues at the end of the process, which may cost you time and money.

Quality Assurance – Managing and Planning for Quality

Quality assurance takes your quality management process a step further. QA is focused on planning, documenting, and agreeing on the steps, rules, and guidelines that are necessary to ensuring quality. The planning happens at the beginning of a project, and the end result is a documented quality plan.

The main purpose of QA is to prevent defects from entering into your product in the first place, so it’s a proactive measure to ensure quality. Planning for quality is key to mitigating risks, but also saves you a lot of time and money.

Quality Management System – QA and QC Working Together

According to ISO standards, a quality management system (QMS) includes quality planning, quality improvement initiatives, the establishment of a set of quality policies and objectives that will act as guidelines within an organization, and QA/QC procedures.

The seven quality management principles are:

1.       Customer focus

2.       Leadership

3.       Engagement of people

4.       Process approach

5.       Improvement

6.       Evidence-based decision making

7.       Relationship management