Quality Control vs Quality Assurance: Whats the Difference?

ISO ensures that products and services are safe, reliable, and of good quality. QA teams monitor the manufacturing process and make sure that quality standards are implemented. They see to it that workers adhere to industry quality and safety standards.

Get in touch with a solutions expert today to learn how Form.com can create a unique solution to help your organization improve quality management. First, recall that QA and QC should not be used interchangeably. The same goes for quality audits and inspections, https://www.globalcloudteam.com/ a difference which we covered in the previous section. They are distinctly different functions with similar goals that often utilize identical techniques. As of May 2021, the median annual salary for quality control inspectors is $38,580 [3].

Quality Control Approaches

It is the act of reviewing and gaining an understanding of business processes. You review all components of a process like the input, output, procedures, controls, and other factors. Process analysis includes the evaluation of time, cost, capacity, and quality of processes. It involves data collection from the beginning to the end of activities. Quality audits are a systematic, independent, and documented review and evaluation of an organization’s quality management system.

QA activities guide organizations on how to do this, while QC helps organizations to ensure their finished product complies with all the necessary requirements. QA is process-oriented, and it primarily focuses on processes and procedures for improving quality and preventing quality defects before they occur. Quality assurance consists of process-oriented activities that create procedures and standards to optimize software development. Now that we know some of the disadvantages of neglecting quality assurance and quality control, it’s clear that it’s worth implementing these disciplines into your organization. The necessity of both quality assurance and quality control is perhaps best illustrated through the PDCA cycle—a model for achieving continuous improvement and maintaining high quality.

The 5 Major Differences Between Quality Assurance and Quality Control

However, while these processes feature some overlap, it’s essential to note that they are two separate entities and take place at different times. Elements of the QMS may not be specifically composed of QA or QC activities and responsibilities, but instead involve a combination of the two. On the flip side, if there were no quality assurance, testers would be overwhelmed with software bugs and probably spend much more time correcting them. On the other hand, quality control is a team-wide endeavor that verifies the quality of each particular software part.

They are two sides of the same coin and are both necessary for ensuring software quality. If you remove either one, your software’s caliber would suffer. The former uses procedures to guarantee high quality and the latter checks that high quality is achieved in the product. Detecting and triaging such bugs is significantly facilitated by using a bug reporting tool. With such resources, any employee can easily participate in quality control. The consistency of these processes facilitates and improves the workflow of the employees, providing a consistent framework to guide their efforts.

Chapter 1: What Are Quality Assurance and Quality Control?

Quality Control is a reactive approach, focused on finding already existing defects rather than preventing them. This is done through product testing, checkpoint review, codebase analysis, and practical use cases. Similarly, it’s impossible to say whether QA or QC is more valuable. QA involves creating standards and processes to create a safe, effective process.

• Before implementing quality assurance and quality control, it’s important to understand the differences and similarities between the two.
• The QC role looks for defects and bugs after the product is built.
• If difficulties arise, the quality assurance teams must identify what went wrong, correct it, and ensure it doesn’t happen again.
• The checker is an independent document checker who reviews the designer’s work to see that it meets the required standards.
• If defects are found in the products the QC team will report their findings to the QA team and the processes will be reviewed and revised.
• A QA specialist will not be able to implement an innovative process without having experience of working with a product.

In-house and outside stakeholders meet to examine the product, make comments on what they find, and get approval. This technique involves QA professionals inspecting the work to see if all standards are followed. We provide free technical articles and tutorials that will help you to get updated in industry.

What is quality control?

Employees have an exact schedule for maintaining and deploying software and are assisted with explicitly defined procedures, such as the daily scrum, sprint review, and similar. These are used to maintain the quality of your company’s operational processes. With this detailed explanation, you can easily gauge if your current processes support such product adaptability as described above.

While both processes play different roles in a QMS, they ultimately share the same goals and objectives. In simple terms, the QC process is the inspection stage of the QA process. Conversely, quality control focuses on the product and verifies that the finished software complies with the standards quality assurance has set. One easy method is to utilize a quality management tool like Qualio. This resource incorporates both quality assurance and quality control into one single platform.

What Are the Benefits of Software Quality Assurance?

You are more likely to get good reviews from satisfied customers. They are also more likely to make recommendations, and these positive mentions boost your business profitability. QA processes are developed that consider your customers’ needs, and assures them that you are meeting those needs. QC procedures re-enforce Quality assurance vs. Quality control your customers’ quality needs and make sure their standards are met. Implementing QA and QC processes encourage a high level of confidence and motivation in your employees. It boosts your employees’ morale to work since processes and procedures are effectively and efficiently documented thanks to QA.

Quality control procedures apply to all business models, whether B2B or B2C, product- or service-based. Process validation is the name given to this process improvement. Check that all equipment is set up and operating as intended by the manufacturer as part of the process validation.

Quality assurance vs. quality control: key differences

Quality assurance and quality control use several different methods to fulfill quality needs. Organizations choose one or two that meet the quality management needs in their sector or industry and that ensure quality in every area of the organization. If these processes are consistently followed, a quality product is likely, though not guaranteed. In QC, teams ensure that the developed product meets the organization’s quality standards. Defects in a software product, such as UI glitches, design imperfections, accessibility issues or security gaps, can cause irreparable damage to a brand’s reputation. Through a systematic QC process, the organization can correct products to ensure that they meet business requirements and customer expectations.