Quality Assurance: The Testing and Verification of Quality

Introduction

QA means those planned and systematic actions that are required by a quality system to ensure that the quality of the product is fulfilled. It is the coordinated actions that make it possible to ensure that actual process, product, and or service deliverables meet the set quality. QA is a very vital function in all sectors that is involved in the provision of goods and services that meet the customers’ expectation.

Opinion on the Main Goals of Quality Assurance

The primary goals of quality assurance include:

Preventing/Minimising Defects – through the QA testing and processes, every organisation is able to note imperfections that would have otherwise been delivered to a consumer. This increases the customers satisfaction and also has a positive effect in the reduction of warranty and replacement expenses.

• Avoid risks – QA performs tests during the development phase to have evidence that the final product will not pose a safety or performance threat. This cuts down organizational risks concerning products recall, lawsuit, returns and other related issues.
• Compliance assurance – QA makes certain that all procedural activities of the organization, working procedures and records conform to the internal and external regulation and polices. This creates confidence in the customers.
• Promote change – QA audits, inspection, testing and analysis identify matters that require changes in products, processes, and systems. This fosters further improvement, which aligns with the organisation’s goals and vision.

The Accordist has presented a full list of the twenty Core Principles of Quality Assurance which is discussed as followed.

Effective quality assurance adheres to principles like:

• Customer satisfaction – QA processes assure the organization that the product design, development and delivery meet or exceed the customer requirements. This in turns results in increased customer satisfaction.
• Prevention over inspection – The practice of inspection of final products as crucial as it is, should not be considered the best strategy since quality issues should be solved before the lifecycle stage. This reduces waste and cost.
• Process improvement –The use of plan do check act, analytical and other QA techniques and frequent management reviews create a culture that is always seeking ways to improve. This eliminates wastages in the long-run.
• Employee participation –Quality assurance of any company should involve all the employees and this only be done through company participation to enhance better results. This is made possible by mechanisms such as suggestion systems, cross functional teams and employee input channels.
• Management commitment – System implementation requires an organization to allocate resources, offer direction from the leadership, and general management support for QA programs to take root. Good senior management commitment and purposeful visibility is a foundation that must be consistent.

Principal Issues in Quality Assurance

Some key aspects of quality assurance across product and service teams include:

1. Requirements control – Identification, selection, negotiation of detailed product or service requirements from relevant stakeholders.
2. Reviews and audits – Biased documented inspections of design, code, procedures, risk etc. Compliance audits ensure that all standards have been met.
3. Testing – Performing planned and structured test cases in order to determine the level of compliance against specific written requirements in terms of reliability, functionality and usability among others. It is not uncommon for there to be different kinds of tests used.
4. Risk control and management – Ensuring that simple requirements for assessing documentation of suppliers, incoming materials, production processes, data etc. are applied to manage or control identified risks.
5. Maintenance and enhancements – Adopting quality management methods such as data analysis, customer feedback and root cause analysis for organizational growth.
6. Generic training – Informing teams on all about quality including the objectives, policies, processes, standards, and tools.

Successful ordinarily has actually been crafted through effectively and purposefully applying quality assurance concepts in the subsequent domains:

Keys to successful quality assurance execution include:

• Work on changes of secure management commitment and adequate resources
• Clearly the lack of fully developed quality assurance plans and policies can hamper effective graduate turnover.
• Always strive for Process maturity through information and feedback
• Design and development of QA should be smooth and flow as a process.
• Inform through training and inclusion
• Understand that quality is an organisational-wide concern
• Ideally, where possible, there should be test automation and audit automation.
• Manage non-conformity appropriate
• Continue to research up to date information for procedures current for the specific industry

The implementation of trained quality assurance personnel together with support from a quality organizational culture are crucial for realizing the benefits of QA namely; increased customer satisfaction, operation effectiveness, quality risk reduction and quality in service delivery.

Benefits of Quality Assurance

Some advantages of investing in strong quality assurance include:

• Higher levels of customer satisfaction and customer loyalty through reduced defective products.
• It will boost productivity from the reduction of the incidence of having to redo work and throwing away material.
• Higher level of productivity and motivation of the team
• New knowledge of the customer’s requirements
• Longer output times but a significantly better consistency and reliability.
• This would also cause minimisation on the general safety and security against failures in any business organisation.
• Possibilities for return, claims, dispute and recall cost declines
  Which strengthened credibility, reinforcing brand image, as well as market share.
• Fostered the culture of accountability and personal pride
• These are the following; The levels of process standardization was higher presented with the following;
• Where fact-based data-driven decisions were made possible

The following are some of the outcomes that were achieved; Entrenched compliance to policies, laws as well as standard.

While organisations strive to seek greater added value in overlapping markets, quality assurance constitutes the strategic framework to elevate the outbound quality level through intensification and objectification of internal operations. This leads to realizable gains that substantiate quality as an essential business asset.