What Is Meant By Quality Assurance?

Introduction:

Quality Assurance (QA) means basically that Quality Control is conducted in a systematic manner. Quality Assurance is the term used by manufacturers, to describe the ‘administrative system’ put in place, to ensure that quality control (checks carried out by workers on a product / component) can be carried out effectively.

Features of quality assurance:

• Quality Assurance (QA) means basically that Quality Control is conducted in a systematic manner.
• Quality Control means checking that various stages of the process of serving the customer have been conducted correctly and any defects identified have been corrected.
• Quality Assurance means that the process of checking, correcting and controlling is conducted in such a manner that the manufacturer/service provider is aware that all stages of the process are being conducted correctly (with the set quality standards in operation) and that what is planned is what is expected to result in terms of output.
• Quality Assurance also means that there is a set of documentation (a system) which demonstrates the existing standards of quality and reliability.

1. Quality Assurance uses what has been referred to as the ‘death certificate approach’.
2. It rejects inspection as the answer to quality problems and encourages the implementation of procedures in order to comply with set standards.

Quality Assurance has been defined as follows:

‘Quality Assurance contains all those planned and systemic actions required to provide adequate confidence that a product or service will satisfy given requirements for quality.’

1. To make sure that products and services are in compliance to set standards, QA relies on the use of Statistical Process Control techniques.
2. The system for the implementation, controlling and auditing in QA is often open to third party approval either by customers or government agencies.