What Is Quality Assurance and Why Is It Important?

Quality assurance helps businesses concentrate on the quality of goods through every step of development. This process builds trust with consumers by promoting consistency and saves the business time and money. Quality assurance is not the same as quality control, but both processes help businesses produce the highest-quality products possible.

During the Industrial Revolution and the growth of mass production in the 1920s, it became essential to define the meaning of quality. Once defined, industries then had to determine how to maintain these predetermined standards.

The original goal of quality control was assuring engineers met preset obligations in their final results. However, as manufacturing methods became more intricate, quality became more of a discipline involving influencing variations, such as supply chain processes or work methods, to produce better goods.

By the 1950s, the quality profession had grown to include quality assurance (and quality audit) roles. Today, quality control and quality assurance are as important as ever to protect consumers and the environment. Knowing these terms and how they impact development processes helps consumers and businesses make better purchasing decisions regarding goods. 

What Is Quality Assurance?

Imagine a company that creates products without any protocols or standards to measure their quality. Now imagine a company that creates its goods based on strict guidelines that ensure quality and consistency happen each time. Which company would you rather buy from? 

This all comes down to quality assurance. Quality assurance is the process companies use to certify that products meet the company or industry's standards. Companies may also use the quality assurance process to improve their products’ quality over time, which benefits the consumer.

To ensure quality, companies rely on quality assurance, quality control and quality audits. Quality assurance and control relate to providing high-quality goods, while quality audits ensure the quality system processes are the best they can be. Companies may conduct a quality audit to review their best practices, how employees resolved previous quality issues and more. 

Most companies consider their quality assurance process essential as the process proves to stakeholders and consumers that the company offers high-quality goods.  

Why Is Quality Assurance Important?

Quality assurance is an important step in measuring a product’s standard for several reasons, including:

• Building consumer trust
• Creating consistent development processes
• Focusing on better resource and asset management

Establishes Trust

Consumers who purchase a faulty product will likely become annoyed and turn to competitors’ products in the future. After all, no one wants to buy a product that seems to be low-quality because it feels like a waste of money. If a consumer doesn’t trust a business or its products, they won’t make repeat purchases or advocate for the business to others. 

Remember that trust equals customer confidence and a better company reputation.

Ensures Consistency in Production Processes

Teams or individuals assess each product throughout development using the quality assurance process. This means every product is virtually the same each time. As a result, consumers trust that product more as they know what to expect when purchasing.

Saves Time and Money

Imagine your company spends extra time and money for no good reason. This is what happens when companies forego quality assurance practices. 

It takes resources to develop initial quality assurance protocols. However, companies find this is well worth it when the system later catches, prevents and repairs mistakes in goods before they hit the market. Additionally, fixing a problem with goods at an earlier stage in the production process is much more cost-efficient than fixing it later.

What’s the Difference Between Quality Assurance and Quality Control?

The main difference between quality assurance and quality control is that quality assurance catches concerns before a product reaches customers. Quality control, on the other hand, addresses quality errors after production concludes. 

Quality assurance also aims to eliminate any problems that may lead to quality concerns that require quality control. Conversely, the goal of quality control is to address errors retrospectively to figure out what caused them.

Examples of Quality Assurance in Different Industries

While quality assurance has the same ultimate goal in every industry, the practices differ depending on the work environment and product type. 

Manufacturing

Quality assurance is essential in any manufacturing environment. This is especially true for manufacturers that create parts or models with an elevated quality standard to avoid consumer injury or death. For example, businesses in the automotive industry must ensure that their products are safe, trustworthy and free of manufacturing errors before vehicles hit the market. 

Cosmetics

Another example is the cosmetics market. Companies that don’t follow a strict quality assurance process for these products may end up putting their customers in danger with harmful products that may cause illness or side effects. Quality assurance for this industry may look like testing specific ingredients before mixing them to create the final product.

Food and Beverage

The food and beverage industry is another industry that needs solid quality assurance processes to not only protect customers but also protect the environment. Food and beverage industries, like many others, must also follow regulatory requirements set by the government. Quality assurance ensures that these requirements are met.

Customer Service

Quality assurance in customer service identifies that the service must be:

• Knowledgeable 
• Measurable
• Dependable
• Easily accessible

In the customer service industry, quality assurance evaluates how effective or useful the service is to the customer. For instance, customers expect timely responses to concerns. Quality assurance systems monitor that response times are at a reasonable level and track time to help companies understand how employees use their resources. 

Final Thoughts on Quality Assurance

Companies that consistently produce great products are not doing so by accident. They work hard to maintain quality management practices that allow them to be consistent and thoughtful about the goods they offer. 

Quality assurance, quality control and auditing processes are essential for quality management. Depending on the industry, additional processes (or more specific procedures) may exist to protect consumers, workers and the environment. 

Though quality management procedures may not always catch every error, they are an excellent way for companies to show consumers that they care about the products they offer and their reputation. However, quality standards are not left entirely up to the companies. Consumers, too, must pay attention to the quality of the products they use to ensure they are promoting safe and thorough business quality practices through their purchases. 

Top Takeaways

What is quality assurance, and why is it important?

• Quality assurance refers to actions taken during product development to produce high-quality goods.
• Quality assurance is necessary because it builds trust, ensures consistency and saves time and money. 
• While quality assurance is not the same as quality control, they are both essential for successful quality management.
• Many industries rely on quality management practices to produce safe and effective goods.

(Reporting by NPD)