Difference b/w Quality Control & Quality Assurance

Quality Control & Quality Assurance

Oh my God! What are these words?

I’m completely confused with these terms.

Some on please explain me these terms.

Please!!!

For those people who have these things running in your minds…

Here you go,

I got you the simplest way of understanding these terms.

So,

Are you ready to learn?

Let’s start then,

First, let us check out the definitions of Quality Control & Quality Assurance, given by ISO.

Quality Control
“A part of quality management focused on fulfilling quality requirements”.
ISO 9000 Deﬁnitions

Quality Assurance
A part of quality management focused on providing conﬁdence that quality requirements will be fulﬁlled
ISO 9000 Definitions

Now,

We’ll move on to understand them with example

Interested?

Ok, then,

Here we go…

Example:

Suppose two companies ABC Food Pvt ltd and XYZ Food Pvt Ltd are engaged in manufacturing of biscuit.

If you see their products in the market, both are manufacturing high-quality products without any single defect.

But when you go and see their manufacturing area,

ABC factory has very less rejection from the manufacturing line…

And,

XYZ factory has huge rejection.

Now, let us check their manufacturing process and quality system, to analyse the reason.

Ready?

Ok…

ABC company has set many controls set before the final product analysis is done. They check process parameters, incoming RM and PM, and also, they monitor the product during the process.

Their process monitoring helps in less process variation and so, lesser product rejection.

Imagine…

Baking oven temperatures always fluctuate by 10 C up and down.

Guess what happens?

Most of the biscuits coming out will either be over-baked or under-baked leading to rejection.

Isn’t it?

But,

If you control the process at the beginning itself, the rejection can be controlled.

Agreed?

Then,

Raw Materials and Packaging Materials, if monitored at the beginning, the final product rejection is reduced.

Moreover, if too many under-quality products are produced, there are chances that final monitoring of the product can miss one of them.

And thus, quality is hampered.

So,

What we see is that,

If we have initial control of the process and the raw materials, then, we have better control over the quality of the final product.

From the above all,

we can say that,

The ABC company is following Quality Assurance, where, through proper planning and process, it assures that the final product is of high quality with less rejection.

Whereas XYZ company is completely focusing on the final quality of the product…

And,

by controlling the final product, thus follows Quality Control

In simple language, we can say –

Quality Control:

The set of activities or techniques used to achieve and maintain the product quality, process and service.

It does it by finding & eliminating causes of quality problems through tools & equipment so that customer’s requirements are continually met

Quality Assurance:

It is the prevention of quality problems through planned and systematic activities including documentation.

It does by establishing a good quality management system and the assessment of its adequacy & conformance audit of the operating system & the review of the system itself.

Hope you got a clear idea about these terms.

Check out other articles:

https://foodtechpathshala.com/water-activity-vs-moisture/

https://foodtechpathshala.com/understanding-accuracy-and-precision/