Sales phases for quality assurance

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have you ever been talking to someone and the terms quality control or quality assurance come up and the things that they're saying don't jive with what you thought the meaning was do you know what the difference is between quality assurance and quality control I'm your host Brian Wagner in this episode of the engineering quality control podcast I'll be discussing the differences between quality assurance and quality control and how management and expectations play their role in defining these terms at your firm so let's Jump Right In thank you foreign [Music] so what exactly is quality assurance and quality control and what are the differences so when we look back at Merriam-Webster Dictionary quality assurance is defined as a program for the systematic monitoring and evaluation of the various aspects of a project service or facility to ensure that standards of quality are being met that's the Merriam-Webster definition for quality assurance quality control on the other hand as defined by Merriam-Webster is an aggregate of activities such as design analysis and inspection for defects designed to ensure adequate quality especially in manufactured projects now we're applying this to engineering products plans reports those kind of things so what does it really mean for engineers and this question comes up a lot there's a lot of confusion behind well it's quality assurance or is it quality controller QA QC like which one really applies and which one is it and ultimately what I'm going to tell you is it comes down to your specific company and your specific definitions that are set really at a company level now we've all used resources from across the industry and we've talked about ISO 9000 on this podcast before and that product ISO 9000 defines quality control as a part of the quality management focused on fulfilling the quality requirements which is a little bit more specific than what Merriam-Webster's definition is but they're essentially the same thing and aggregate of activities or in the case of iso it's a part of quality management now quality assurance defined by ISO is a part of the quality management focused on providing confidence and quality requirements that verifying that they will be fulfilled so it also it's not explicitly clear to me as I read those but let me let me tell you what I think and this is the strategy and the approach that I take to this terminology and that is that quality assurance is essentially the management end of things the oversight strategy how are we verifying and what systems have we put into place that can be repeated and applied to each deliverable each project each process that we do in our company alternatively quality control is the strategy of executing those expectations and applying them to the specific aspects of each project and why so the question comes up is we hear about qaqc or or oh it's quality assurance or is it quality control but really the the end game is getting to that finish line of exactly meeting an expectation so I think of what I think of as quality assurance that is that Foundation and maybe that's the the corporate expectations this is what you're going to do and I think of it as like a foundation quality assurance is that system that we base how we approach quality control and every company is going to be a little bit different every company and every firm even firms within the same disciplines can easily be very different because of jurisdictional requirements and all those things that we've I've talked about in the The Gather phase of my five-part framework that really can affect how you approach quality and those expectations that are defined both by your clients by the approval authorities by mandates and laws and codes versus just guidelines and policies and we'll come back to that part and then so I think of it linearly with a project has a start and a finish that we start something and then we finish it obviously but we start with that basis of quality control and we're working towards a Finish Line which is somewhere into the future and and there's a lot of intermediate Finish Lines when you look at engineering documents that go through Quality Control reviews throughout the process of a project but if we looked at it in a sense of project progress and how we get from that Foundation from that start of a job to the finish line I like to think is that quality assurance is that foundation and then each project is really stacked on top and works its way towards that finish line and you keep adding building blocks with different projects that are moving at different rates different processes through the project and I think of that as where quality control for me is applied and it's important that I want to just emphasize that there could be deliverables at different points throughout the project that apply repetition in the Quality Control process but it's still based in General on those quality assurance standards those management expectations so from a let's look at it from a couple different perspectives when I think about quality assurance and quality control by this definition that I'm using right now at a project management level as a project manager I'm thinking okay corporate or or my boss wants me to apply quality control throughout the process whether it's standardized uh because of an ISO accreditation or or maybe a standardized in a policy and a procedure or guideline the quality assurance is what people expect of me and the quality control is what I'm doing at a project level to make sure that deliverable is the best that it can be and that it's going to meet the expectations and at least at a minimum it's been through the rigor of a verification process looking for those technical errors looking for the simple things making sure the correct jurisdictional information is there making sure that all of the information that's relative to the job is appropriate and that there's not save as issues and leftover pieces or were just wrong technical things if we look at it from a team manager where you have several project managers working under you and yours you may be spot checking and verifying on a global basis of that your managers are doing the work but you may not be directly involved in the quality controlled checking that's where I would say that you're more on the quality assurance side where you're enforcing standards and then if you're at a corporate level where you may not be directly involved in projects on a daily basis and when you get involved it may not be good unfortunately that's what happens in or in corporate engineering a lot is there a whole bunch of jobs go really well and then one just doesn't go as planned and that's when other people start looking in and that's when this emphasis on quality control and quality assurance is so important and I think it's really important from a company level to really explain this and and document the expectations because those expectations are your assurances and then your how you execute that is your controls so I think about management and execution tally policies and guidelines we can look at at quality assurance as a policy so we see this all the time we see it in standards and expectations government work things like that where quality assurance may be the policy where the control aspect gets into the procedures or the guidelines that are set for or procedures and I think it's important to think about it as two very separate things quality control and quality assurance planning Assurance control execution and now as I explained that and I talk through that it's a sense of like I said strategies Assurance is that management strategy while control is more managing the expectations aspect of things because ultimately the policies and the guidelines that surround quality in quality management at your firm is developed and it's enforced because we want to maintain a level of standard a level of expectations and Garner or even establish confidence and when we think about that I think about what is the goal the ultimate goal of a quality management program quality management system because I really think that it's a lot more than just oh we we say we do this and then we kind of do it I think we're looking at confidence from a client's perspective are what they're paying for is normally a lot of money for some kind of unique product so they want to understand potentially if they're asking you about what quality control measures or when you put into your proposal that you're going to do quality control or qaqc do you define what you're going to do or are you extending the expectation that the client's going to say well oh they're going to do qaqc so I know where I'm going to get a good product so it's meant to to kind of instill some confidence from the client perspective but what's it mean in-house think about company and the people you work for or the systems that you're involved in quality control and quality assurance is designed really to instill confidence in the ultimate work that you're producing because I believe that quality control happens throughout the process and while often it's only one or two or or those key design team members that are doing quote-unquote quality control checks they are absolutely people checking each other verifying that when they get a certain aspect of the project and they move it to that next step they should be verifying that the information they got is correct and in a sense that is a quality control check that you're adding new content to Old content and then it's accurate and that's consistent and elevations are accurate uh design requirements are accurate and it happens in so many different steps along the way and we look how we Define it and what those expectations are it's so important to share this with your staff because project managers may not exactly understand what do they expect me to do I I haven't worked here for that long they've they've said I can sign and seal my own jobs but they need to be checked what is that expectation and that's where I say that understanding what quality assurance is and those foundations and fundamental aspects of what the expectations are is the quality assurance and the control is the execution that is consistent that approach that idea and I know I ran on a little bit there but I like to give examples as much as I can to potential scenarios because I will keep emphasizing throughout this that it's really going to be unique to the company like I said you can think of quality assurance and quality controls quality assurance is the foundation and quality controls are built on it you can look at it as quality the assurance is the foundation of quality controls are all around it but let me let me spin that let me flip that a little bit so the company I've worked with and I know several people that work there and as they went through some updates over the years they have reworked their quality standards and expectations but they actually named them the opposite so where I was saying that based on like Merriam-Webster and even ISO which is kind of dictating that quality assurance is the management end and the expectations in and then the control is how you execute those expectations they kind of flipped it the other way and when I think about it from a fundamental engineering background and approach it kind of makes sense that quality assurance is how you're assuring that you meet the quality expectations on your project like a project-based quality assurance and and it's essentially looking at the word Assurance is that you've actually executed it and they structured and their terminology states that quality control is the mandates that they've put into place so they mean the exact opposites but the exact same thing and the reason I share that with you is because it's really easy to get confused by terminology I talk about this when I look at storm water and when even if you just look at engineering jargon in general we use a lot of abbreviations we use a lot of either sophisticated or very unsophisticated terms one great example is swimming as a Land Development engineer stormwater management is a massive aspect of what I do on a daily basis and we talk about it as swim s w m I wrote an email to a client probably about a month ago about as builds and I explained what the as built process was that he would need to go through as part of his project and the reason I was sending him a change order is because we don't know when we do the original proposal what the swim design will be that's what I wrote in my email swm and he called me and he's like what's swim swim what's that mean like I apologize that means storm water management that's what I thought I did a quick internet search and that wasn't even clear so I needed to call you to find out and it was very obvious in that moment that in a sense I felt like I failed him because was I did a really good job of explaining what we needed to do and why we needed to do it but the very first aspect of it was swim as built he didn't understand what that was and why he understood why it was important but he didn't understand what it was and it was because there was a breakdown in jargon and that was from an engineer to a client but what happens when we write these terms QC QA and we put them in proposals we put them in reports we put them in emails even if we write down our quality control processes is it really quality controllers the quality assurance and your clients in many cases are coming from a wide variety of backgrounds and a wide variety of perspectives and they don't necessarily while some of them will be very versed in what we do as Engineers some of them may not be in making emphasis about why these things are important and what they mean is vital to maintaining positive consistent and thorough communication so hopefully you're now thinking a little bit about what is quality assurance versus what is quality control and ultimately if you don't know if you're questioning right now which is which at your place of employment I would encourage you to ask your supervisor to clarify just like you should ask anytime that you're not clear what is quality assurance to you and what is called have a conversation it can be very formal it can be very written out it can be very much explained in policies and procedures and guidelines and expectations or it may not be for most of the companies I've worked for the Quality Control process has not been very clear even some the one company I work for that has an ISO 9000 certification or accreditation not certification but accreditation they have very well documented what they did how they did it and why they did it and basically the ISO 9000 as I was understood is write down what you're going to do you do it and then you verify that you're doing it but are you being consistent and being consistent in your terminology across the board I would just challenge each of you to consider that think about that work through that and make sure that you absolutely understand how it applies to your firm and I just want to give you a real quick recap to the definitions that I typically see and that is the quality assurances the program of systematic monitoring and evaluation it's the management end of things the oversight strategy and quality control on the other hand is the strategy of executing those expectations and the idea of what quality assurance is so hopefully I've found this helpful insightful and if nothing else got you thinking about how you do or don't clarify these things across your company with your staff and even if it's not documented on a corporate level make sure when you're communicating with your staff and in your groups and in your teams make sure that you are speaking the same language and that you each understand those expectations across the board please remember that you can find the show notes for this episode like all episodes at engineering quality control.com you'll find a summary of the key points that we've discussed today as well as any links resources that I may have mentioned until next time friends I wish you the best in all of your engineering endeavors foreign [Music] [Music]