Quality Assurance

Quality assurance (QA) is the set of activities (including facilitation, training, measurement, and analysis) needed to provide adequate confi­dence that processes are established and continuously improved in order to produce products or services that conform to requirements and are fit for use.
QA is a staff function that prevents problems by heading them off, and by advising restraint and redirection at the proper time. It is also a catalytic function that should promote quality concepts, and encourage quality attitudes and discipline on the part of management and workers. Successful QA managers know how to make people quality conscious and to make them recognize the personal and organizational benefits of quality.

The major impediments to QA come from management, which is typically results oriented, and sees little need for a function that emphasizes managing and controlling processes. Thus, many of the impediments to QA are associated with processes, and include the following.

Quality Assurance is a professional competency whose focus is directed at critical processes used to build products and services. The profession is charged with the responsibility for tactical process improvement initiatives that are strategically aligned to the goals of the organization. The quality language is the way quality professionals describe the principles, concepts, and approaches used for improving quality. Until the vocabulary is learned and its use encouraged in the organization, quality becomes a difficult