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Quality Assurance vs. Quality Control

            Quality Assurance

            Quality Control

Definition:   
QA is a set of activities for ensuring quality in the processes by which products are developed.
QC is a set of activities for ensuring quality in products. The activities focus on identifying defects in the actual products produced.
Focus on:   
QA aims to prevent defects with a focus on the process used to make the product. It is a proactive quality process.
QC aims to identify (and correct) defects in the finished product. Quality control, therefore, is a reactive process.
Goal:  
The goal of QA is to improve development and test processes so that defects do not arise when the product is being developed.
The goal of QC is to identify defects after a product is developed and before it's released.
How:  
Establish a good quality management system and the assessment of its adequacy. Periodic conformance audits of the operations of the system.
Finding & eliminating sources of quality problems through tools & equipment so that customer's requirements are continually met.
What:  Prevention of quality problems through planned and systematic activities including documentation.
The activities or techniques used to achieve and maintain the product quality, process and service.
Responsibility:  
Everyone on the team involved in developing the product is responsible for quality assurance.
Quality control is usually the responsibility of a specific team that tests the product for defects.
Example:  
Verification is an example of QA
Validation/Software Testing is an example of QC
Statistical Techniques:  
Statistical Tools & Techniques can be applied in both QA & QC. When they are applied to processes (process inputs & operational parameters), they are called Statistical Process Control (SPC); & it becomes the part of QA.
When statistical tools & techniques are applied to finished products (process outputs), they are called as Statistical Quality Control (SQC) & comes under QC.
As a tool:  
QA is a managerial tool

In the ISO 9000 standard, clause 3.2.10 defines Quality Control as:
“A part of quality management focused on fulfilling quality requirements”

Clause 3.2.11 defines Quality Assurance as:
“A part of quality management focused on providing confidence that quality requirements will be fulfilled”
QC is a corrective tool








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