Quality Assurance is not Quality Control.

I recently attended a panel discussion where a team of QHSE experts and I discussed how Artificial intelligence can be effectively integrated into QHSE, taking into consideration the risks and ethical implications across businesses.

During the panel discussion, we examined the differences between Quality Control and Quality Assurance being part of Quality Management. There are times when they are interchanged, but they are two different processes that occur at different times.?Their roles are different in every process, but they all play vital roles in managing quality effectively.

Explaining In a layman's descriptive approach, Quality Assurance (QA) covers all the activities that take place within a quality management plan to ensure that your product is ready to go into production, service, or delivery.??Another way to describe quality assurance is that it is the process of ensuring that the quality requirements planned will be met as your product or service is manufactured or delivered.

However, Quality Control (QC) can be considered as the inspection phase of quality assurance. The connection is now apparent, isn't it? In simple terms, it refers to a series of tests taken after a product has been manufactured to verify its safety and effectiveness.

For those not in this field, there are also different methodologies for QA and QC, such as Agile, Six Sigma, and other project management methods.

I will use a few examples to illustrate what QA and QC are and how the two processes relate to one another for proper understanding.

First, we can say QA is Proactive and QC is Reactive. From my explanation above you can connect the dots that effective quality assurance is proactive because it aims to prevent defects before they occur through process design. So, you can say QA serves more like a preventive barrier (remember bow tie analysis for risk management?)?

However, QC is reactive and exists to identify defects in the quality of products after they have happened. This is why it is reactive, a recovery barrier.

QA is process-oriented, and it focuses on preventing quality issues. QC is product-oriented and focused on identifying quality issues in manufactured products that could affect customer satisfaction. Another way to understand this distinction is actions vs. results. QA involves the actions that create the product, while QC is focused on the resulting product.

Secondly, we can see QA as a System while QC as Parts. Now, Quality assurance control systems are all the methods and procedures that are used to safeguard quality standards. Quality control systems, measure parts, including the outputs of the system.

Thirdly, we can see QA as Creation while QC as Verification. This means that the result of QA activities is a roadmap for you or your business to create high-quality products. Did you see that? This involves defining standards for product design, service, manufacture, packaging, distribution, marketing, and sales, the list can go on depending on the scope.

But now, QC only involves verification of products post-manufacture and before distribution or confirming safety and efficacy.

Lastly, We also see QA as an Entire Team, while QC as Dedicated Personnel. If you look at the entire quality management structure, its implementation involves an entire team. So, every member of the organization is responsible for QA activities by following the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).

It is my hope that I am able to convey a clear understanding of what QA and QC are and how they are related.

For an end-to-end quality process, QC and QA are best when integrated into an Enterprise Quality Management (EQM) system. The same as Enterprise Risk Management (ERM).