6 May 2022
Quality assurance and quality control approaches are well-known across industries. Moreover, they are often combined into a single term. Hence, people in software development use the QA/QC notion to describe the entire quality evaluation strategy with no clear differentiation. But this can be hard for newcomers because there are some core distinctions between QA and QC measures when describing real-life tasks. And our article will help you to differentiate these processes.
A Brief Description of Quality Assurance and Quality Control
Quality assurance (QA) is one of the two ways to perform quality management tasks. It involves a wide variety of activities that allows the development of top-notch software smoothly. QA involves trained professionals within the dedicated team who discuss, plan and test the digital product performance.
QA also sets strategies for the entire project, and it must comply with international technical and business standards. For example, the ISO/IEC 25010:2011 covers software development and engineering tasks and belongs to the ISO 9000 family. The company must set QA policies to guarantee a smooth development process and high quality of the final product.
Quality assurance covers nine activities:
- Business needs and requirements;
- UI/UX and prototype development;
- Code writing and testing;
- Versioning;
- Continuous integration & deployment;
- Configuration control;
- Test performance;
- Release and deployment management;
- Gathering feedback from customers.
Finally, efficient quality assurance depends on numerous aspects, and it requires a lot of effort to satisfy the final user with your digital solution. Many concepts that seemed revolutionary may become obsolete today, so the QA measures must develop with your product.
Quality control (QC) is not separate from quality assurance but rather a part of it. So, is it right that QA and QC are independent of each other? Not really.
By working together, the founder of the client company and the dedicated team ensure compliance with all quality policies. Any flaws can injure the reputation of the brand, such as security failures, performance issues, and design imperfections. The company can avoid this by conducting a systematic QC.
Quality control covers the following objectives:
- Detecting bugs;
- Verification against established quality requirements that were planned earlier;
- Сonfirmity assessment according to tech and business standards;
- Test reporting;
- Documenting flaws to fix them during the next iteration;
- Defining areas of improvement in software quality.
The quality department conducts all these tasks following the development plan. Therefore, the dedicated team can correct all shortcomings before the final product release.
What Are Critical Distinctions Between QA and QC
Newcomers may confuse these concepts, and some controversy occurs over which measures fall within each category. They are closely interrelated, but some things still differentiate QA vs QC, so let’s review them.
Approach
All QA objectives are solely proactive. It means that employees prevent all failures before they happen by the design of processing. On the contrary, QC is reactive and concentrates on identifying failures that occurred.
Discussing the design of processing, the most crucial part of it is creating the standard operating procedures (SOPs). This activity is mandatory by ISO 9000/9001 standards because the following requirements allow first-class software development. QC covers the testing stage and compliance check. If the quality department detects a bug, the subsequent development lifecycle stops to fix it. Such an approach makes the difference between QA and QC in software testing.
Plus, all failures found during the QC measures start the QA process, especially the corrective and preventive action (CAPA) plan implementation. It helps define ways to improve the current development lifecycle and avoid future failures.
Orientation
Quality assurance concentrates on preventing issues, so it has an orientation toward processes. Therefore, a dedicated team can avoid performance issues and failures in all versions of the software. Quality control, in turn, orients on the product and determines bugs in the finished digital solution.
In short, QA involves the development activities, while QC is in charge of maintenance measures. Let us explain the difference between quality control and quality assurance.
QA Processes
- Documentation of the quality assurance activities
- Continuous audits
- Process management
- Staff training
- Change monitoring process
QC Procedures
- Batch monitoring execution
- Software inspection
- Product sampling
- Validation testing
- Software testing
As you can see, quality assurance and quality control responsibilities are different, so do not confuse them.
Control
The QA approach aims to enhance technical and industry standards. Plus, quality assurance has mandatory tasks (e.g., auditing of the technology suppliers) to guarantee first-class quality measurement.
QC procedures cover separate parts, including outputs. Quality control efforts may also concentrate on the instruments and tools for building up the first-class digital solution (libraries, programming languages, software, etc.).
Emphasis
It is another topic to discuss quality assurance vs quality control. The QC aims to test all software parts to find issues. The secret is implementing the best practices to improve product quality (e.g., test-driven development). Such a concept also helps to reduce complaints from customers.
Quality assurance emphasises the prevention of failures from even happening. Dedicated teams implement advanced collaboration practices to coordinate all parties, including code reviews. This approach allows QA specialists to detect and prioritise all failures.
Responsibility
QA involves both testers and developers. Therefore, all of them take responsibility for proper quality assurance and should follow SOPs set previously for the entire team.
As for the QC measures, the specific employees conduct these activities, including compliance with SOPs during all the mandatory processes. These workers also document all shortcomings during the process validation and product testing stages.
The final digital product performance directly affects its profitability. Therefore, you should organise the comprehensive quality assurance process properly. Find more about the QA plan here.
Introduction to Quality Management and Its Core Advantages
Quality management (QM) brings together quality control vs assurance objectives. This concept involves determining the main reasons that interfere with advanced software development and searching for solutions to address them. Further, coherent quality management measures guarantee the excellent work of your quality item specialists.
Benefits of Proper Quality Management
- A higher degree of the client satisfaction;
- A highly productive team that follows business standards and regulations;
- Rework prevention;
- Confident planning and task execution;
- Trust of all interested parties.
If you decide to optimise all quality measurement processes within your company or project, the efficient QM approach is a must. Therefore, you should know about the quality assurance and quality control differences.
Choosing Between QA and QC Activities for Your Business
When developing digital solutions, you should think about performing QC after QA. The question is: “Do you need to organise quality control after the compliance check?”
QA provides the following activities:
- Process specification;
- Policy and strategy formulation, planning and guidance;
- Adoption of technical standards.
All of these occur within the entire development life cycle. If you establish QC standards that result from the QA activities, you need to remember to keep the top quality of the software, guaranteeing that it satisfies your clients.
Sometimes it seems much better not to differentiate between quality assurance and quality control and choose only one option. But there is the thing: both of these processes have significant advantages. Therefore, you should learn more about these concepts and their implementation to achieve maximum results. Quality assurance allows businesses to set policies for developing first-class solutions, while quality control aims to conduct the proper product validation. Therefore, companies can cross the t’s by searching for QC performing methods to inform QA.
How to Constantly Stand Behind Your Product’s High Quality
We have just gone through what the difference between quality control and quality assurance is based on our experience. However, for maximum effect, you should use these approaches together. Without adequate QA, your digital product will be full of bugs resulting in a negative user experience. Without proper QC, the company cannot guarantee high speed and smooth software performance, resulting in clients’ dissatisfaction.
QA and QC approaches allow your business to grow and expand. Among other things, they allow to:
- Develop top-notch digital solutions;
- Optimise the workflow;
- Enhance customer experience;
- Cut the costs and save efforts;
- Increase productivity and confidence.
At Rocketech, we know how to conduct all processes of developing first-class products for your business. We dedicate a particular team that creates software that meets your needs and requirements. And if you want to get a top-notch solution and succeed on the market, contact us now!