Quality Assurance

Quality assurance is a system of procedures, checks, audits, and corrective actions to ensure that all design, environmental monitoring, performance, research, sampling, and technical reporting activities are of the highest achievable quality. Quality assurance also determines whether products or services meet or exceed customer expectations. Quality assurance procedures can be divided into several simple steps for success.

Quality Assurance Steps

In general, quality assurance involves four steps or phases.

• Planning: During the planning phase, interrelated problems are assessed, objectives are established, and problematic processes are cited. Processes that may be required to deliver the necessary results are established or developed.
• Implementation: During the implementation phase, developed processes are set in motion.
• Monitoring: The monitoring phase is an ongoing process, usually handled by a manager or consultant, which involves evaluating and testing the implemented process to make sure they meet the objectives. This also involves monitoring for potential problems and future improvements.
• Action: During the action phase, if necessary, actions are applied if the results require any changes.

Quality Assurance and Quality Control Confusion

Many people make the mistake of confusing quality control with quality assurance. This is an easy mistake to make as the two are quite similar on the surface. While QA and QC are similar, a closer look will reveal several basic differences. Quality control focuses on the product, while quality assurance focuses on the process. Quality control includes evaluating an activity, a product, process, or service while quality assurance aims to ensure processes are sufficient to meet clearly defined objectives. In a nutshell, quality assurance ensures a product or service is created, implemented, or produced correctly, whereas quality control determines if the “end result” is satisfactory or not.

Benefits of Quality Assurance

One of the major benefits of quality assurance is increased profits through increased customer satisfaction. Customers are also involved in the quality assurance process via surveys, customer feedback cards, and a variety of additional marketing tactics which help to determine if customers' needs are being met or not. Believe it or not, companies do pay attention to customer feedback as it helps to correct any product or service flaws. Quality assurance also helps to improve productivity or company efficiency. Quality assurance steps are typically performed throughout the life of the product or service—this way internal issues, flaws, or problems are constantly being addressed and corrected in order to increase and improve productivity. This also helps to increase profits.

Quality Assurance Services and Costs

Whether your business is small or large, there are many different types of quality assurance services available today. Businesses may opt for an independent quality assurance consultant or a firm specializing in quality assurance. Because quality assurance takes skill, patience, and experience, it's best to seek out trusted names in the business or hire through a referral. Costs for quality assurance services or consulting will vary greatly depending on a variety of factors such as the type of business or size of project. Most consulting firms and independent consultants will provide an initial consultation to determine costs or they will provide an estimate for services.

By Michelle Burton