Quality Assurance

A process which aims to prevent errors, defects and problems arising in products and services. The outcome should be the consistent maintenance of the desired standards and requirements for a product or service delivery, ensuring customer satisfaction is maintained and expectations continually met, if not exceeded. The focus of quality assurance is on process improvement.

The process is a proactive one and will involve a range of stages including planning (for example, who will undertake the QA, when and where it will take place, and what is to be involved), the implementation by monitoring (for example with inspections, visual assessments, physical testing, interviews, surveys, or full audits), evaluating the findings of the monitoring elements to determine if adjustments, corrective actions or changes to processes needs to take place to ensure consistency of desirable outcomes is maintained, and finally a reflection on continuous improvement to consider if additional efficiencies and/or quality improvements can be achieved to further enhance customer satisfaction or expectations.