What's The Difference When It Comes To Managing Quality?

By James Jardine, Staff Writer, MasterControl

“In the quality management system, the products are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: The quality control professionals who investigate the crimes against product quality, and the quality assurance experts who proactively prevent defects, variances, and other product quality offenders. These are their stories.” (Insert “dun-dun” clang sound here.)

QA and QC are not identical or interchangeable, but you’re likely to have peers who don’t understand the distinctions between them. To help such individuals solve the mystery behind these frequently conflated quality functions, you can provide an example of QA and QC that draws a comparison to something so ubiquitous that almost anyone can relate to it: the television show “Law & Order,” whose various iterations have been broadcast onto our screens for what seems like as long as manufactured products have been advertised on TV commercials.