When you are searching for issues about quality control, you may feel confused. Because sometimes you can see “quality assurance”. “quality control” and “quality assurance” sometimes are used in a mix. But actually, they are different and they shouldn’t be used with the same meaning.
What is Quality Assurance (QA)?
Quality assurance is to plan production activities & requirements and ensure these requirements will be fulfilled in the whole developing and manufacturing process.
Take a new high-end watch production for example.
QA has to do watch research, evaluate watch design, analyze watch sales and business, contact client’s specific requirements, etc. During these processes, QA can foresee the potential problems which haven’t yet happened to the watches. Then QA will pre-define the production processes and standards to prevent these problems. What is Quality Control (QC)?
Quality control is a practical activity to inspect and test the products and the production process to ensure the finished products meet quality standards.
Still take the new high-end watch production for example.
QC inspect watches have been produced. QC finds and rejects defective products, like watches with scratches or painted the wrong color. These defective watches will be asked to rework to ensure the goods shipped to you meet your requirements.
Quality Assurance (QA) V.S. Quality Control (QC)
To have a better distinction between QA and QC, their differences can be roughly divided into the following points.
