Everything You Need to Know About Quality Assurance vs Quality Control

The titles of quality assurance, quality control, and quality management are regularly used reciprocally.

As a project manager, it is imperative to recognize the differences between these jargons so that you know exactly what you are talking about with your clients as well as team members.

They have different goals.

Quality Assurance (QA) concentrates on preventing defects.

Quality Control (QC) focuses on recognizing defects.

The amount of widgets coming out of an assembly line, a standard reference for most people, is Quality Control. In contrast, Quality Assurance surveys the assembly line itself to increase QC results.

What is Quality Assurance?

Quality Assurance is known as QA and concentrates on preventing defects. Quality Assurance guarantees that the approaches, procedures, methods, and rules that are designed for the projects are implemented correctly.

Quality assurance pursuits monitor and confirm that the processes used to manage and create the deliverables have been followed and are operative.

What is Quality Control?

Quality Control is known as QC and centers on identifying a defect. QC guarantees that the approaches, techniques, methods, and processes are designed in the project are being followed accurately. QC activities control and verify that the project deliverables meet the defined quality standards.

Here are a few differences between the quality assurance and quality control processes:

• Quality assurance focuses on error prevention, while quality control focuses on error identification.
• Quality assurance guarantees that the plan was active in avoiding any expected defects. Quality control helps you detect errors in the deliverable and fix them.
• Quality assurance is a proactive method that starts even before the work on the deliverable has begun, while quality control is a reactive method, and its activity begins as soon as you commence working on the deliverable.

Type	Quality Assurance	Quality Control
Definition	QA is the implementation of processes, methodologies and standards that ensure that the software developed will be up to the required quality standards.	QC is the set of activities that are carried out to verify the developed product meets the required standards.
Target	QA focuses on the improvement of process and methodologies used to develop product.	QC focuses on the improvement of the product by identifying the bugs and issues.
Orientation	It is process oriented.	It is product oriented.
Nature of process	QA is preventive process as it establishes the methods which prevent the bugs.	QC is corrective process as it focuses on identifying the bugs and getting them fixed.
Verification vs Validation	Quality Assurance is a verification activity that verifies you are doing the right thing in the right manner.	Quality assurances is a validation activity that validates the product against the requirements.
Who	All the persons involved in the project starting from the requirement.	It is the responsibility of Quality Control inspector or the testing team that finds the issues.
Tools and Techniques	Defining Processes, Quality Audit, Selection of Tools, Training.	Defining Processes, Quality Audit, Selection of Tools, Training.
Examples	Examples of quality assurance activities include process checklists, process standards, process documentation and project audit.	Examples of quality control activities include inspection, deliverable peer reviews and the software testing process.

Source:- Reqtest

Conclusion

The quality assurance and quality control methods assure that a product is defect-free and conforms to specifications. Both ways have the same purpose, but the strategy is different. They fall under the umbrella of managed QA services. Quality assurance is process-based, and quality control is product-based.

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