When you are searching for issues about quality control, you may feel confused. Because sometimes you can see “quality assurance”. “quality control” and “quality assurance” sometimes are used in a mix. But actually, they are different and they shouldn’t be used with the same meaning.

What Is Quality Assurance (QA)?

Quality assurance is to plan production activities & requirements and ensure these requirements will be fulfilled in the whole developing and manufacturing process.

Take a new high-end watch production for example.

QA has to do watch research, evaluate watch design, analyze watch sales and business, contact client’s specific requirements, etc. During these processes, QA can foresee the potential problems which haven’t yet happened to the watches. Then QA will pre-define the production processes and standards to prevent these problems. What is Quality Control (QC)?

Quality control is a practical activity to inspect and test the products and the production process to ensure the finished products meet quality standards.

Still take the new high-end watch production for example.

QC inspect watches have been produced. QC finds and rejects defective products, like watches with scratches or painted the wrong color. These defective watches will be asked to rework to ensure the goods shipped to you meet your requirements.

Quality Assurance (QA) V.S. Quality Control (QC)

1. Different Focus

QA aims to prevent any quality problems before they occur on products. It is proactive.

QC aims to find & reject defective products when problems have happened. It is reactive.

2. Different Orientation

QA  arranges production activities and standards in advance and ensures they are followed in the whole development life cycle of the project. Thus, it is a line function. It is process-oriented and relatively long-term.

QC inspects products when or after they are manufactured. It only involves the test phase of the life cycle. Thus, it is a staff function.  It is result-oriented and relatively short-term.

3. Different Function

QA can be seen as a managerial tool. It can control and guide the whole development life cycle to assure product quality.

QC can be seen as verifying tool, finding and correcting defects before entering the market.

4. Different Responsibility

QA involves communicating with various people and departments to assure quality. So it requires a larger team to deal with different work.

QC mostly involves product inspection and testing in the factory to measure the quality. So it requires a smaller team specializing in product inspection/testing.