Quality Control vs. Quality Assurance
Introduction- Since World War II and the advanced capacity for technology and manufacturing, many organizations have adopted working and managerial philosophies that surround the principles of quality. The modern organizational environment on all fronts is rapidly evolving. An increased focus on globalization causes many organizations to undergo rapid and rather continual change that are driven by consumer expectations, launching of new technologies, and now, global competition. The result is a very different business environment engendering the evolution of a new way of thinking about business -- business success is driven by quality and quality is an evolving tool (Bendell, 2005).
In many ways, this has resulted in a number of theories that are all designed to ensure the highest quality of a product or service, coupled with the lowest margin of error and cost. Thus, we have quality control, in which there are a set of activities designed to evaluate a product or service, and quality assurance, a set of activities that are designed to ensure that a development process will ensure that a system meets its objectives. Taken together, these form part of an overall paradigm for quality called TQM (total quality management) which is a philosophy that is both continually evolving and integrative in its approach to products and processes (Van Der Wiele, et.al., 2006). However, despite being overall pieces, or templates, in the TQM process, it is important to understand the differences between quality control and quality assurance. While these differ somewhat...
construction vs. asset management, etc.) there are overall similarities that allow us to categorize.
Quality Control -- Quality control is a process that reviews all the factors that make up a product or service. It is an approach that takes three major ideas and uses those ideas as a way to quantify that product or service: 1) Elements in job control, management, processes, performance, identification (quantitative and more "hard" evidence); 2) Knowledge or skill, experience and qualifications (typically organization and/or job dependent); 3) Organizational culture, motivation, team spirit, group dynamics, relationships with stakeholders, etc. -- more "soft" elements that are qualitative in their overall approach (Besterfield, 2008)..
The entire process emphasizes the way a product or service is tested to ensure that it meets a set of predetermined standards. It thus depends on the product or service as to the manner in which quality is quantified. For instance, the QC process for a Mercedes automobile would be different than that for a microchip, which would be different than that for a large printing of a paperback book or a release of a new DVD. In each case, the quality of the end product and the acceptable error margin are used to determine the overall quality score benchmark.
Quality Assurance -- Quality assurance works in tandem with quality control because it is the planned forces that are necessary for any quality system so that the quality specifications can be fulfilled. It is systematic, measured, comparable with…
