Many people get confused about what constitutes quality control (QC) and quality assurance (QA). It’s important to understand the differences and how they both play vital but distinct roles in helping an enterprise achieve the highest quality standards.
QA and QC work together as part of an overall quality management system (QMS) and both are essential for achieving and maintaining regulatory compliance.
What is quality assurance?
Quality assurance is a set of processes that ensure quality in the development of a product. It is proactive because it aims to prevent defects and low quality.
Effective quality assurance builds quality controls into the product’s entire life cycle. These processes and actions – such as documenting standard operating procedures (SOPs) – should ensure the product is safe and effective.
What is quality control?
Quality control is product oriented. It uses test procedures to verify that a finished product is safe, effective and meets standards. QC is reactive because it exists to identify – and correct – defects and errors after they’ve happened.
Key differences between QC and QA
There is overlap between quality assurance and quality control. They both focus on fulfilling quality, but they’re distinctly different.
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