Quality Management
Before we start our subject, let’s define briefly some key words that will be used in our studies. We will describe quality management, quality assurance as well as quality control. For a better understanding of our subject we will run all these quality types with more details in the next pages.
Quality management, used by many companies, has a specific meaning within many business sectors. The quality management doesn’t especially promote a good quality for a firm, but rather to ensure that a product or organization is consistent, can be considered to have four components: quality planning, quality control, quality assurance, and quality improvement. Quality management focuses not only on product or service, but also in the way to achieve it. Therefore, quality management is using quality assurance and control of processes as well as products to achieve a better quality. We will describe clearly these two types in our subject.
However quality assurance known as QA; refers to engineering activities that are implemented in a quality system so that requirements for a product or service will be accomplished. Quality assurance is associated with feedback loop that confers error prevention, systematic measurement, comparison with standard and monitoring of processes. Additionally, there are two principles included in quality management: “Fit for purpose”, the product should be suitable for the intended purpose; “Right first time” mistakes must be eliminated. Quality assurance manage quality of assemblies, product and components, raw materials, production and inspection processes.
In the other hand, quality control knows as QC is more general. It is a process by which companies review the quality of all factors involved in production. This approach can be described on three aspects: 1- Elements such as controls, job management - defined and well managed processes, performance and integrity criteria and identification of records 2- Competence such as
Quality management, used by many companies, has a specific meaning within many business sectors. The quality management doesn’t especially promote a good quality for a firm, but rather to ensure that a product or organization is consistent, can be considered to have four components: quality planning, quality control, quality assurance, and quality improvement. Quality management focuses not only on product or service, but also in the way to achieve it. Therefore, quality management is using quality assurance and control of processes as well as products to achieve a better quality. We will describe clearly these two types in our subject.
However quality assurance known as QA; refers to engineering activities that are implemented in a quality system so that requirements for a product or service will be accomplished. Quality assurance is associated with feedback loop that confers error prevention, systematic measurement, comparison with standard and monitoring of processes. Additionally, there are two principles included in quality management: “Fit for purpose”, the product should be suitable for the intended purpose; “Right first time” mistakes must be eliminated. Quality assurance manage quality of assemblies, product and components, raw materials, production and inspection processes.
In the other hand, quality control knows as QC is more general. It is a process by which companies review the quality of all factors involved in production. This approach can be described on three aspects: 1- Elements such as controls, job management - defined and well managed processes, performance and integrity criteria and identification of records 2- Competence such as
References: 1- Wikipedia.com: Quality Management, Quality assurance and Quality control 2- Whatls.com: http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/quality-control-QC 3- Asq.org: http://asq.org/learn-about-quality/quality-assurance-quality-control/overview/overview.html 4- C2.com: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?QualityAssuranceIsNotQualityControl 5- Hci.com: http://www.hci.com.au/hcisite3/toolkit/quality.htm 6- Wisegeek.com: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-quality-assurance.htm#did-you-know 7- Differen.com: http://www.diffen.com/difference/Quality_Assurance_vs_Quality_Control