What is Quality Assurance?
Quality Assurance is industry’s standard of determining, verifying and assuring that a product or a company’s specific goals and services exceed the customer’s expectations. It considers production, service, development and design in its assessment. In short, the system works to eliminate mistakes through a process of regulation, including measuring the quality of products, services, materials, production and management components.
Definition of Quality:
The systematic and planned event or activity implemented in a within a certain system so that excellence for a service or product is fulfilled.
Definition of Assurance:
Bringing about and installing confidence; being certain or the act of being sure.
A good QA requires good communication and social skills, while independently acting and focusing on the company it is evaluating. They embrace the company with a non-heartless approach, and implement semantics, not just the “bottom line.”
The quality assurance team uses a popular tool commonly called PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act) to evaluate and determine excellence and provide improvement. It was founded by Dr. Edwards Deming, but its more popular name is the Deming Wheel, or Shewhart Cycle. It’s based on a method of science. The principle is, once a hypothesis is negated, beginning and implementing the cycle again will further extend knowledge, bringing about perfect output and operation within the company.
PDCA is an effective way of monitoring quality assurance. It scrutinizes the existing components, conditions and services within the company in order to improve revenue and working conditions, products and safety. It has been proven that this method is appropriate throughout the life of the service, ultimately increasing and improving upon efficiency.
The PDCA Model Explained at Length:
• Plan: The objectives required to improve upon and deliver the necessary expectations and results within a specific time frame within an expected outcome. A great deal of planning is implemented in the planning and inspection process.
• Do: On a smaller scale, putting the new process in place establishing the plan.
• Check: Evaluate and consistently monitor the implemented plan by testing the original goals and objectives. It includes feedback from customers or various vehicles of marketing in order to make sure the needs of the customer are being met, or why they have not.
• Act: May include a total amendment, modification or alteration of the process in order to resolve a cosmetic or technical flaw; consequently, leading to long-term longevity, change and growth within the business.
Quality assurance means, in a nutshell, to analyze quality; however, it is vital to understand that “quality” is determined by who is actually the intended user, as in, the customer. The product quality is what is important, but it is not to be judged by how expensive it is, but by whether it meets specifications that comply with society. Goods and products with low prices can be considered high in quality if they conform to the market’s need, so it guarantees much more than just the evaluation of all parts, components of a service, product or facility.
With much competition among businesses to provide specific services and products to be profitable, it is no small wonder why there is a need for quality assurance personnel. They do a service that will result in change and long-term growth, bringing about change and financial breakthroughs. Their goal is to avoid and minimize the issues the initially led to mistakes and defects from the beginning, whether it is a product, service or a management issue.
Training for a quality assurance officer includes many techniques that will help to implement organization; i.e. Root Cause and Effects Analysis, Failure Mode, just to name a few. They are able to perform audits and reports, identify system processes, and develop a plan of action to effectively take correction within a business organization.
The main reason a smart company would hire a quality assurance agent is simple. To leave the consulting, planning and training for the sole purpose of gaining financially. If you are seeking to improve productivity and service quality and decrease overhead costs, read on.
Things can never be “good enough.” Sometimes a call for action is needed. You may think that your business practices, management and employees are as close to perfection as possible; but it is possible that there is room for improvement. Some very important things that business owners and managers may want to consider is their own personal recipe for success within the company, and how it relates to them.
1) Training
This refers to the training of new managers. Too many times they do not understand their roles, or how much latitude they have within the company. They may not know what their boundry of authority is. On the same note, sometimes some of the older employees were never given the proper training, but somehow they made it past the earlier stages of production. They are all, as a whole, being under-utilized. All too often, people are shown something once, and then set free. They go on assuming they are correctly training others, when in fact there may be a more efficient way to carry out business practices.
Sometimes a key element of the quality assurance personnel is to determine what kind of training is useful. This could include whether the employer was at fault, i.e. did he refuse to consider ideas, more training, or the use of reports and charts? Have training manuals been implemented? If so, should they be overhauled?
2) Leaders
The QA team help machines, gadgets and leadership perform better. Their aim is for managers to become better leaders. The role of a leader is different from a manager. They are coaches; not police officers. Coaches intuitively develop other people, attempting to help them attain their full potential; police enforce and impose rules. It is their job to catch people when they are doing something wrong. It can be difficult to learn this concept without the help of a quality assurance team, but integral to attaining success and profitability.
Sometimes supervisors have operated on the principle of asking their subordinates to “keep quiet” for the sake of the team, choosing to resolve problems either through compromise or coercion. A QA develops the true leader so that they may know how to address problems, resulting in solutions that are a “win-win” for everyone concerned.
