What is a Quality Control Manager?

Quality control managers are responsible for ensuring regulatory standards of a company's or organization's goods or services. Those regulatory standards might be self-imposed or they may be imposed by an external regulatory body, like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Quality control managers exist in a variety of fields. Software developers, apple growers and call centers often use quality control managers. The bulk of their work is focused on maintaining quality within the established systems in place, but they also work to improve systems to further improve quality, often while keeping costs down.

The job duties of a quality control manager may involve developing and communicating quality standards and procedures, ensuring compliance with government or other externally-imposed regulatory requirements, and providing direction to staff. That direction might be provided to safety technicians, quality control inspectors, product inspectors, production personnel, or a quality control engineer. The quality control manager is not only responsible for ensuring that the quality department staff are performing their jobs correctly, but also that the company as a whole is meeting standards.

Typically part of the senior management or executive team, these managers usually have a Bachelor's or Master's degree. Depending on the particular industry they work in, quality managers may have completed coursework in engineering; lean manufacturing; manufacturing procedures; operations management; process, project and people management; and quality management. In addition to these academic qualities, successful quality control managers also have strong written and verbal communication skills, problem solving skills, the ability to see both the details and the big picture of the service or product delivery process, and a strong technical understanding of the field.

In addition to ensuring that products or services meet existing standards, a quality control manager is also typically responsible for quality improvement initiatives. Not only is it important for companies to attract consumers through quality products or services that meet company and regulatory standards, it is also necessary to retain those consumers over time. One of the best ways to do that is for the company's products or services to continually improve and grow in the marketplace.