Quality Assurance vs Quality Control

What this topic covers

How process confidence and product verification serve different roles.

Core testing ideas

Quality assurance focuses on the system used to achieve consistent results.

Quality control examines outputs and process evidence against requirements.

Testing and inspection are QC tools that also provide feedback for QA improvement.

Measurement and method limits

A result is only meaningful when the characteristic, units, method and acceptance requirement are clear.

Evidence and traceability

Traceability and documentation let later reviewers understand what was tested and with which equipment and method.

Using the result

Inspection plans should focus effort on meaningful characteristics instead of collecting data without a decision path.