Quality improvement

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Quality Improvement is about adopting measures which can,

(i) increase quality and
(ii) reduce risk

The two most important quality improvement measures are:

(i) Quality Assurance and
(ii) Quality Control

Quality Assurance (generally shortened to QA) is concerned with ensuring that the processes, people and materials involved in the development of products and/or services are of a high standard.

Quality Control is concerned with ensuring that whatever is produced is fit for the purpose it was produced for. This includes meeting the requirements such as those defined by the customer and also ensuring that the level of risk associated with whatever’s produced is minimized.

So a company that makes cars for example, will use Quality Assurance to ensure that the processes, people and the materials involved with the car manufacturing are of a high standard. Whilst Quality Control will be used to ensure that the cars produced are fit for the purpose they’re produced for, that is they’re not defective and drive as expected. Aswell ensuring that anything that could go wrong with the cars once they’re sold can also be checked against and rectified prior to selling the car. Such as checking to see whether after 12,000 miles of use, no serious defects appear.

The cost effective approach for Quality Improvement is to use Quality Assurance and Quality Control effecively together. Without Quality Assurance the likelihood of more defects appearing increases and without Quality Control, the likelihood of defects going undetected increases. Both scenarios result in increased costs as a result of rectifying defects, which increases the risk to the organization supplying the product or service. In a worse case scenario, more defects could lead to increased litigation in the form of lawsuits and compensation claims.

[edit] External Links

Learning more about Quality Improvement

[edit] See also

• Quality management