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Quality assurance, or QA for short, is the set of planned and systematic actions necessary to provide appropriate confidence that a product or service will satisfy the requirements for quality.

Contents

History

Early efforts to control the quality of production

When the first specialized craftsmen arose manufacturing tools for others, the principle of quality was simple: "let the buyer beware" (caveat emptor). A craft is a Skill, especially involving practical arts. It may refer to a Trade or particular art Caveat emptor is Latin for "Let the buyer beware" Generally caveat emptor is the Property law doctrine that controls the sale of Real

Early civil engineering projects needed to be built from specifications in order to ensure the four sides of the base of the Great Pyramid of Giza will be perpendicular to within 3. Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design construction and maintenance of the physical and naturally built The Great Pyramid of Giza, also called Khufu's Pyramid or the Pyramid of Khufu, and Pyramid of Cheops, is the oldest and largest of the three 5 arcseconds. A minute of arc, arcminute, or MOA is a unit of angular measurement, equal to one sixtieth (1/60 of one degree.

During the Middle Ages, guilds took the responsibility of quality control upon themselves. A guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade The earliest guilds were formed as confraternities of workers

Royal governments purchasing material were interested in quality control as customers. Materials are physical Substances used as inputs to production or Manufacturing. For this reason , King John of England appointed a certain William Wrotham to report about the construction and repair of ships. John (24 December 1167 &ndash 19 October 1216 reigned as a King of England from 6 April 1199 until his death Some centuries later, but also in England, Samuel Pepys, Secretary to the Admiralty, appointed multiple such overseers. Samuel Pepys, FRS (23 February 1633 – 26 May 1703 was an English naval administrator and Member of Parliament, who is now most famous for The Admiralty was formerly the authority in the United Kingdom responsible for the command of the Royal Navy.

Prior to the extensive division of labor and mechanization resulting from the Industrial Revolution, it was possible for workers to control the quality of their own products. Division of labour or specialization is the specialization of cooperative labour in specific circumscribed tasks and roles intended to increase the Productivity Mechanization or mechanisation ( BE) is providing human operators with machinery to assist them with the physical requirements of work The Industrial Revolution was a period in the late 18th and early 19th centuries when major changes in agriculture manufacturing and transportation had a profound effect on the Working conditions then were more conducive to professional pride.

The Industrial Revolution led to a system in which large groups of people performing a similar type of work were grouped together under the supervision of a foreman who was appointed to control the quality of work manufactured.

Wartime production

During World War I, the manufacturing process became more complex, and the introduction of large numbers of workers being supervised by a foreman designated to ensure the quality of the work, which was being produced. World War I (abbreviated WWI; also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All This period also introduced mass production and piecework, which created problems as workmen could now earn more money by the production of extra products, which in turn led to bad workmanship being passed on to the assembly lines. Mass production (also called flow production, repetitive flow production, series production, or serial production) is the production of Piece work or piecework describes types of Employment in which a Worker is paid a fixed "piece rate" for each unit produced or An assembly line is a Manufacturing process in which parts (usually Interchangeable parts) are added to a product in a sequential manner using optimally planned

Due to the large amount of bad workmanship being produced, the first full time inspectors were introduced into the large-scale modern factory. This is about the police rank/position For the use in graphical user interfaces see Inspector window. A factory (previously manufactory) or manufacturing plant is an industrial Building where workers manufacture goods These full time inspectors were the real beginning of inspection quality control, and this was the beginning the large inspection organizations of the 1920s and 1930s, which were separately organised from production and big enough to be headed by superintendents. Year 1920 ( MCMXX) was a Leap year starting on Thursday (link will display 1920 of the Gregorian calendar Year 1930 ( MCMXXX) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display 1930 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. A Construction superintendent is the contractor’s representative who is responsible for continuous field supervision coordination and completion of the work

The systematic approach to quality started in industrial manufacture during the 1930s, mostly in the USA, when some attention was given to the cost of scrap and rework. Year 1930 ( MCMXXX) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display 1930 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the Scrap is a term used to describe Recyclable materials left over from every manner of product consumption such as parts of vehicles building supplies and surplus materials With the impact of mass production, which was required during the Second World War, it became necessary to introduce a more appropriate form of quality control which can be identified as Statistical Quality Control, or SQC. Mass production (also called flow production, repetitive flow production, series production, or serial production) is the production of World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including Statistical Process Control (SPC is an effective method of monitoring a process through the use of Control charts Control charts enable the use of objective criteria for distinguishing Some of the initial work for SQC is credited to Walter A. Shewhart of Bell Labs, starting with his famous one-page memorandum of 1924. Walter Andrew Shewhart (pronounced like "Shoe-heart" March 18, 1891 Bell Laboratories (also known as Bell Labs and formerly known as AT&T Bell Laboratories and Bell Telephone Laboratories) is the Research organization

This system came about with the realisation that quality cannot be fully inspected into a important batch of items . By extending the inspection phase and making inspection organizations more efficient, it provides inspectors with control tools such as sampling and control charts. Theoretical sampling is a term coined by Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss in 1967 in the context of Social research to describe the In Statistical process control, the control chart, also known as the ' Shewhart chart' or ' process-behaviour chart' is a tool used to determine whether a

SQC had a significant contribution in that it provided a sampling inspection system where 100 per cent inspection was not practicable. This type of inspection however did lead to a lack of attention to the engineering activities for producinq quality.

For example, if you have a basic sampling scheme with an acceptance level of 4%, what happens is you have a ratio of 96% products released onto the market with 4% defective items – this obviously is a fair risk if you are ensured that unfortunate buyers will not complain. A ratio is an expression which compares quantities relative to each other

Postwar

After World War II, the United States continued to apply the concepts of inspection and sampling to remove defective product from production lines. However, there were many individuals trying to lead U. S. industries towards a more comprehensive approach to quality. Excluding the U. S. , many countries' manufacturing capabilities were destroyed during the war. This placed American business in a position where advances in the collaborative approaches to quality were essentially ignored.

After World War II, the U. S. sent General Douglas MacArthur to oversee the re-building of Japan. General MacArthur redirects here for other meanings see General MacArthur (disambiguation. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Japan topics. During this time, General MacArthur involved two key individuals in the development of modern quality concepts: W. Edwards Deming and Joseph Juran. William Edwards Deming ( October 14, 1900 – December 20, 1993) was an American Statistician, Professor, Joseph Moses Juran ( December 24, 1904 – February 28, 2008) was a 20th century management consultant who is principally remembered as an Both individuals promoted the collaborative concepts of quality to Japanese business and technical groups, and these groups utilized these concepts in the redevelopment of the Japanese economy.

Quality assurance activities

Quality assurance applies to all forms of products and services. This introduced the rules: "fit for purpose" and "do it right the first time". It includes the regulation of the quality of raw materials, assemblies, products and components; services related to production; and management, production, and inspection processes. In the vernacular quality can mean a high degree of excellence (“a quality product” a degree of excellence or the lack of it (“work of average quality” or a property of

One of the most widely used paradigms for QA management is the PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) approach, also known as the Shewhart cycle. PDCA (" Plan-Do-Check-Act " is an iterative four-step problem-solving process typically used in Quality control. PDCA (" Plan-Do-Check-Act " is an iterative four-step problem-solving process typically used in Quality control.

Failure testing

A valuable process to perform on a whole consumer product is failure testing, the operation of a product until it fails, often under stresses such as increasing vibration, temperature and humidity. Consumers refers to individuals or households that use goods and services generated within the economy. Vibration refers to mechanical Oscillations about an equilibrium point. Temperature is a physical property of a system that underlies the common notions of hot and cold something that is hotter generally has the greater temperature Humidity is the amount of water vapor in the air In daily language the term "humidity" is normally taken to mean Relative humidity. This exposes many unanticipated weaknesses in a product, and the data is used to drive engineering and manufacturing process improvements. In Organizational development (OD Process improvement is a series of actions taken to identify analyze and improve existing Processes within an Organization Often quite simple changes can dramatically improve product service, such as changing to mould-resistant paint or adding lock-washer placement to the training for new assembly personnel. WikipediaManual_of_Style#National_varieties_of_English --> Molds (or Paint is any Liquid, liquifiable or mastic composition which after application to a substrate in a thin layer is converted to an opaque Solid The term training refers to the acquisition of knowledge skills and competencies as a result of the teaching of vocational or practical skills and knowledge

Statistical control

Many organizations use statistical process control to bring the organization to Six Sigma levels of quality, in other words, so that the likelihood of an unexpected failure is confined to six standard deviations on the normal distribution. Statistical Process Control (SPC is an effective method of monitoring a process through the use of Control charts Control charts enable the use of objective criteria for distinguishing An organization (or organisation &mdash see spelling differences) is a social arrangement which pursues collective goals which controls its own performance and Six Sigma is a Business management strategy originally developed by Motorola, that today enjoys wide-spread application in many sectors of industry In Probability and Statistics, the standard deviation is a measure of the dispersion of a collection of values The normal distribution, also called the Gaussian distribution, is an important family of Continuous probability distributions applicable in many fields This probability is less than four one-millionths. This list compares various sizes of positive Numbers including counts of things Dimensionless quantity and probabilities. Items controlled often include clerical tasks such as order-entry as well as conventional manufacturing tasks. Clerk, the vocational title commonly refers to a White-collar worker who conducts general office or in some instances sales tasks

Traditional statistical process controls in manufacturing operations usually proceed by randomly sampling and testing a fraction of the output. Variances of critical tolerances are continuously tracked, and manufacturing processes are corrected before bad parts can be produced.

Total quality control

Deep Analysis of quality assurance practices and premisses used about them is the most necessary inspection control of all in cases where, despite statistical quality control techniques or quality improvements implemented, sales decrease.

The major problem which leads to a decrease in sales was that the specifications did not include the most important factor, “What the specifications have to state in order to satisfy the customer requirments ?”.

The major characteristics, ignored during the search to improve manufacture and overall business performance were:

As the most important factor had been ignored, a few refinements had to be introduced:

  1. Marketing had to carry out their work properly and define the customer’s specifications.
  2. Specifications had to be defined to conform to these requirements. In Engineering, a requirement is a singular documented need of what a particular product or service should be or do
  3. Conformance to specifications i. e. drawings, standards and other relevant documents, were introduced during manufacturing, planning and control. Drawing is a Visual art that makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium Planning in Organizations and Public policy is both the organizational process of creating and maintaining a Plan; and the psychological process of
  4. Management had to confirm all operators are equal to the work imposed on them and holidays, celebrations and disputes did not affect any of the quality levels. In Mathematics, an operator is a function which operates on (or modifies another function
  5. Inspections and tests were carried out, and all components and materials, bought in or otherwise, conformed to the specifications, and the measuring equipment was accurate, this is the responsibility of the QA/QC department. Materials are physical Substances used as inputs to production or Manufacturing.
  6. Any complaints received from the customers were satisfactorily dealt with in a timely manner. In general use a complaint is an expression of displeasure such as poor service at a store or from a Local government, etc
  7. Feedback from the user/customer is used to review designs.
  8. Consistent data recording and assessment and documentation integrity.
  9. Product and/or process change management and notification.

If the original specification does not reflect the correct quality requirements, quality cannot be implemented into the product.

For instance, all parameters for a pressure vessel should include not only the material and dimensions but operating, environmental, safety, reliability and maintainability requirements. In mathematics the dimension of a Space is roughly defined as the minimum number of Coordinates needed to specify every point within it Safety is the state of being "safe" (from French sauf) the condition of being protected against physical social spiritual financial political In Software testing, based on the definition given in ISO 9126, the ease with which a software product can be modified in order to correct defects meet

To conclude, the above forms the basis from which the philosophy of Quality Assurance has evolved, and the achievement of quality or the “fitness-for-purpose” is “Quality Awareness” throughout the company.

ISO 17025

ISO 17025 is an international standard that specifies the general requirements for the competence to carry out tests and or calibrations. ISO/IEC 17025 is the main Standard used by testing and calibration laboratories International standards are Standards developed by international Standards organisations International standards are available for consideration and use worldwide Calibration is the process of establishing the relationship between a measuring device and the units of measure There are 15 management requirements and 10 technical requirements. These requirements outline what a laboratory must do to become accredited. Management system refers to the organization's structure for managing its processes or activities that transform inputs of resources into a product or service which meets the organization's objectives, such as satisfying the customer's quality requirements, complying with regulations, or meeting environmental objectives.

For software development organization, CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) standards are widely used to measure the Quality Assurance. Software development is the translation of a user need or marketing goal into a Software product Capability Maturity Model Integration ( CMMI) is a Process improvement approach that provides organizations with the essential elements of effective processes Capability Maturity Model Integration ( CMMI) is a Process improvement approach that provides organizations with the essential elements of effective processes These CMMI standards can be divided in to 5 steps, which a software development company can achieve by performing different quality improvement activities within the organization.

Company quality

During the 1980s, the concept of “company quality” with the focus on management and people came to the fore. Year 1980 ( MCMLXXX) was a Leap year starting on Tuesday (link displays the 1980 Gregorian calendar) Management (covering theory practice and scope of management and Manager' (covering the people who manage might help clarify and systematise An English Noun The English noun people has two distinct fields of application as a countable noun, a group of Humans It was realised that, if all departments approached quality with an open mind, success was possible if the management led the quality improvement process. Departmentalization refers to the process of grouping activities into departments Improve means to make something Better. It may also refer to Improver Bread improver Improver Corporation Improver

The company-wide quality approach places an emphasis on four aspects :-

  1. Elements such as controls, job management, adequate processes, performance and integrity criteria and identification of records
  2. Competence such as knowledge, skills, experience, qualifications
  3. Soft elements, such as personnel integrity, confidence, organizational culture, motivation, team spirit and quality relationships. Integrity is Consistency of actions values methods measures and principles Confidence is generally described as a state of being certain either that a hypothesis or prediction is correct or that a chosen course of action is the best or most effective given the Organizational culture is a concept in the field of Organizational studies and Management which describes the attitudes experiences beliefs and values Motivation is the reason or reasons for engaging in a particular behavior especially Human behavior as studied in Philosophy, Conflict, Economics
  4. Infrastructure (as it enhances or limits functionality)

The quality of the outputs is at risk if any of these aspects is deficient in any way.

The approach to quality management given here is therefore not limited to the manufacturing theatre only but can be applied to any business or non-business activity:

It comprises a quality improvement process, which is generic in the sense it can be applied to any of these activities and it establishes a behaviour pattern, which supports the achievement of quality.

This in turn is supported by quality management practices which can include a number of business systems and which are usually specific to the activities of the business unit concerned. A business (also called firm or an enterprise) is a legally recognized organizational entity designed to provide goods and/or services to

In manufacturing and construction activities, these business practices can be equated to the models for quality assurance defined by the International Standards contained in the ISO 9000 series and the specified Specifications for quality systems. In the fields of Architecture and Civil engineering, construction is a process that consists of the Building or assembling of Infrastructure ISO 9000 is a family of standards for Quality management systems ISO 9000 is maintained by ISO the International Organization for Standardization and is

Still, in the system of Company Quality, the work being carried out was shop floor inspection which did not reveal the major quality problems. This led to quality assurance or total quality control, which has come into being recently.

Using Contractors and/or consultants

It has become customary to use consultants and contractors when introducing new quality practices and methodologies as in some instances the relevant skill-set and experience might not be available within the organisation. A consultant (from the Latin consultare means "to discuss" from which we also derive words such as consul and counsel) is a Professional In addition, when new initiatives and improvements are required to boost the current quality system, or perhaps improve upon current manufacturing systems, the use of temporary consultants becomes a viable solution when allocating valuable resources.

There are various types of consultants and contractors available in the market; most will have the skills needed to facilitate improvement activities such as Quality Management Systems (QMS) Auditing and procedural documentation writing. But the higher end consultants have knowledge and experience for implementing and improving manufacturing processes by using the latest cutting edge improvement activities such as Six Sigma, Measurement Systems Analysis (MSA), Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA), Advance Product Quality Planning (APQP). Six Sigma is a Business management strategy originally developed by Motorola, that today enjoys wide-spread application in many sectors of industry A Measurement System Analysis, abbreviated MSA, is a specially designed Experiment that seeks to identify the components of variation in the measurement A failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA is a Procedure for analysis of potential failure modes within a system for classification by severity or determination of the effect Advanced Product Quality Planning (or APQP) is a framework of procedures and techniques used to develop products in Industry, particularly the Automotive

Academic resources

See also

References

External links

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