Difference Between Quality Assurance and Quality Control

The two terms quality assurance (QA) and quality control (QC) are used as synonyms. Although these are similar to each other but still have few points of difference.

What is Quality Assurance?

It is the set of activities to prevent any defects and ensure high-quality products that might occur in the process of development.

What is Quality?

There is no specific definition of quality but it can be said as fit for use. It is concerned about meeting the needs and requirements of the target customer related to the design, functionality, reliability, price, and durability of the product.

What is assurance?

Similar to quality assurance also does not have any specific definition, it is just a declaration that gives confidence concerning the services for a product.

It is to provide a certainty that everything is working well and a guarantee that no problems will arise in the work requirements.

What is Quality Control?

The popular abbreviation for quality control is QC. The purpose of this software engineering process is to ensure that the product is good in its quality. In the process of quality control, the products used for creation are not dealt with rather the end products are examined thoroughly for the outcome.

The main function of this software process is to determine that the product made is as per the requirements and the specifications of the customer. if any type of problem or issue is identified then it is rectified before delivery to the customer.

Moreover, quality control is popular in the evaluation of people based on their quality level skill sets to impart the pieces of training as well as certifications.

Difference Between Quality Assurance and Quality Control

It may happen many times that people get confused between quality assurance and quality control.

The major difference between the two is that quality control is used to examine the product or the service and hence checking out the result.

On the other hand, quality assurance is for examining the process so that necessary changes can be made that will lead to the end product.

Both quality assurance, as well as quality control, are important processes in the environment of the software. The purpose of both is the same however the approach to deal with the things differ. Here is few others point of differences among these two processes.

1. Duration – one of the bases of difference is duration. While quality assurance is a medium to long-term work that is implemented at the designing stage, quality control is done when the outcome is produced that is at the final stage. It has to be considered that QA must be complete before QC.

2. Focus – QA puts focus on the techniques that are process-oriented regarding the delivery to be made. In this process, certain standards and techniques need to be followed. On the other hand, the focus of QC is product-oriented which diverts its attention towards the final product.

3. Goal – the goal of the QA is the prevention of defects and bugs in software development. The goal of QC is validation.

4. Responsibility – The responsibility of QA is to develop a full software development life cycle. Similarly for the process of QC, the responsibility of the testing team Is in the software testing life cycle.

5. Tools – The tools used in the QA generally include control charts, cost-benefit analysis, cause and effect diagrams. The tool used for quality control is quality reviews. Most popular are technical and code reviews.

Real-Time Example of Quality Assurance and Quality Control

All the teams encounter certain difficulties whenever they start on new projects. Let us take the example of working with completely new technology.

Now in the given instance, there will be a need to draw a plan to train the team members in the new technology by a collection of design documents, and confirming the technical and functional requirements.

On the progress of the project, a check by the quality assurance is must to ensure that there are no risks and people are involved at the right time. A strategy should be prepared for ensuring that most of the defects are prevented before quality control starts.

After the completion of quality assurance, the quality control will start for testing and inspection. This will include the checking of the designs, test strategy, and specification documents.

Any defect that will arise in the interrogation process has to be reported back and properly resolved. After all the issues are resolved sanity tests and regression tests are done for the final quality check.

Conclusion

The purpose of both of them is the detection of any defects and prevention from them during the development of the process. Certain standards and processes followed by the organization can improve the work periodically.

This is possible only when there is a clear understanding between quality assurance and quality control which can help in creating an effective management plan and high-quality products leading to preserved customer trust.

Both QA and QC are quite necessary as this testing process can make a difference in the successful or unsuccessful software product.