Quality Assurance V/S Quality Control

Quality Methods are segmented two categories:

-- Preventing Methods,

-- Detective Methods.

Quality Assurance: 

The Monitoring and measuring the strength of development process is SQA. It is planned and systematic set of activities to provide adequate confidence that the products and services will conform to specified requirements and meet user needs. Quality Assurance is a staffing Function.

Example: QA activities is an IT environment would determine the need for:

System development methodologies,

Estimation Process,

System maintenance process,

Requirements definition process,

Testing Process and standards..

Quality Control :

The validation of the S/W product with respect to Customer Requirements and Expectations. It is a process by which product quality is compared with applicable standards, and the action taken when non-conformance is detected, Quality Control is a line function. 

   Quality Control activities focus on identifying defects in the actual products produced. These activities begin at the start of the software  development process with reviews of requirements , and continue until all application testing is complete.

  It is possible  to have quality control without quality assurance.

Example: A test team may be in a place to conduct system testing at the end of development, regardless of whether that system is produced using a software development methodology .

Quality Assurance is Preventing in Nature while Quality Control is detective in nature.

Quality Assurance:

 => Helps establish process

 => Sets up measurement Programs to evaluate process.

 => Identifies weaknesses in programs and improves them.

 => Management responsibility, frequently performed by staff function.

 => Concerned with all products produced by the process.

 => Is a Quality Control over quality Control activity.

Quality Control:

=> relates to specific product or service.

 => Verifies Specific attributes are there or not in product/service.

 => Identifies for correcting defects.

 => Responsibility of team/worker

=> Concerned with specific product.

The Following Statements  help differentiate Quality control from Quality Assurance :

* Quality Control relates to a specific product or service.

* Quality Control verifies weather specific attribute(s) are in, or are not in, a specific product or service.

* Quality Control identifies defects for the primary purpose of correcting defects.

* Quality Control is the responsibilty of the ream/worker.

* Quality Control is concerned with specific product.

* Quality Assurance helps establish processes.

* Quality Assurance sets up measurement programs to evaluate processes.

* Quality Assurance identifies weaknesses in processes and improves them.

* Quality Assurance is a management  responsibility, frequently performed by a staff function.

* Quality Assurance is concerned with all of the products that will ever be produced by a process.

* Quality Assurance is sometimes called quality control because it evaluates whether quality control is working.

* Quality Assurance personnel should never perform quality control unless it is to validate Quality Control.