What is Quality Assurance?
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Quality assurance is the process of verifying or determining whether products or services meet or exceed customer expectations. Quality assurance is a process-driven approach with specific steps to help define and attain goals. This process considers design, development, production, and service.
The most popular tool used to determine quality assurance is the Shewhart Cycle, developed by Dr. W. Edwards Deming. This cycle for quality assurance consists of four steps: Plan, Do, Check, and Act. These steps are commonly abbreviated as PDCA.
The four quality assurance steps within the PDCA model stand for:
- Plan: Establish objectives and processes required to deliver the desired results.
- Do: Implement the process developed.
- Check: Monitor and evaluate the implemented process by testing the results against the predetermined objectives
- Act: Apply actions necessary for improvement if the results require changes.
PDCA is an effective method for monitoring quality assurance because it analyzes existing conditions and methods used to provide the product or service customers. The goal is to ensure that excellence is inherent in every component of the process. Quality assurance also helps determine whether the steps used to provide the product or service are appropriate for the time and conditions. In addition, if the PDCA cycle is repeated throughout the lifetime of the product or service, it helps improve internal company efficiency.
Quality assurance demands a degree of detail in order to be fully implemented at every step. Planning, for example, could include investigation into the quality of the raw materials used in manufacturing, the actual assembly, or the inspection processes used. The Checking step could include customer feedback, surveys, or other marketing vehicles to determine if customer needs are being exceeded and why they are or are not. Acting could mean a total revision in the manufacturing process in order to correct a technical or cosmetic flaw.
Competition to provide specialized products and services results in breakthroughs as well as long-term growth and change. Quality assurance verifies that any customer offering, regardless if it is new or evolved, is produced and offered with the best possible materials, in the most comprehensive way, with the highest standards. The goal to exceed customer expectations in a measurable and accountable process is provided by quality assurance.
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12
Thank you. very helpful to me. - anon51064
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Good QA requires good social skills, communication skills, and unilateral thinking and acting on the QA person's part; it also requires a company willing to embrace people with such an approach. Good QA requires gathering and implementing semantics from the customer, not just heartless specifications. This requires a company that employs or is willing to support an iterative R&D process. Unless your company is "just pretending" and really doesn't care that much (although it may think it does with respect to its bottom line) about customers, it will allow its QA personnel a wide range.
Good QA requires the understanding that American consumers generally have low-standard expectations and QA needs to speak to something somewhat alien in our society in order to approach the aura of quality.
If you believe in quality and have high standards, diligently question employers who claim to have a "quality assurance" department! Find the right one - it's worth it! - anon45926
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This is just what i need to have for an interview. - anon43475
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This article provides basic information about quality assurance very clearly and in lucid language. - anon41915
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This is a good overall intro to QA and a useful starting point. The challenge is to apply it in the relevant field and to make all participants to the process aware of the QA requirements involved. - VoxAppeal - anon39590
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I found this article very good and useful for my report on "Quality Assurance" thanks --Andreas - anon39472
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i like the whole article.it is a pretty good article and effective for learning.i m looking for the job of QC/QA this will help me a lot. Thanking you. - anon37655
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thanks..useful for my research, easy to understand! --yeye ;) - anon37389
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great information, it helped me alot
- anon35624
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I'm very excited to gather this information. I'm trying to be a quality assurance manager myself. - anon35115
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I find the article very informative, easy to read and understand. - anon33211
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Quality assurance hits pretty much every industry, company, organization from academic settings, to companies that manufacture or sell goods, to service companies including health care providers. - millhouse
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Written by
Shannon Kietzman
Last Modified: 03 November 2009
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