Quality standards
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Quality control (QC) is a process by which entities review the quality of all factors involved in
production Production may refer to: Economics and business * Production (economics) * Production, the act of manufacturing goods * Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services) * Production as a stati ...
.
ISO 9000 The ISO 9000 family is a set of five quality management systems (QMS) standards that help organizations ensure they meet customer and other stakeholder needs within statutory and regulatory requirements related to a product or service. ISO 90 ...
defines quality control as "a part of
quality management Quality management ensures that an organization, product or service consistently functions well. It has four main components: quality planning, quality assurance, quality control and quality improvement. Quality management is focused not only ...
focused on fulfilling quality requirements". This approach places emphasis on three aspects (enshrined in standards such as ISO 9001): # Elements such as controls, job management, defined and well managed processes, performance and integrity criteria, and identification of records # Competence, such as knowledge, skills, experience, and qualifications # Soft elements, such as personnel,
integrity Integrity is the practice of being honest and showing a consistent and uncompromising adherence to strong moral and ethical principles and values. In ethics, integrity is regarded as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one's actions. Inte ...
,
confidence Confidence is a state of being clear-headed either that a hypothesis or prediction is correct or that a chosen course of action is the best or most effective. Confidence comes from a Latin word 'fidere' which means "to trust"; therefore, having ...
,
organizational culture Historically there have been differences among investigators regarding the definition of organizational culture. Edgar Schein, a leading researcher in this field, defined "organizational culture" as comprising a number of features, including a s ...
,
motivation Motivation is the reason for which humans and other animals initiate, continue, or terminate a behavior at a given time. Motivational states are commonly understood as forces acting within the agent that create a disposition to engage in goal-dire ...
,
team spirit Team Spirit was a joint military training exercise of United States Forces Korea and the Military of South Korea held between 1974 and 1993. The exercise was also scheduled from 1994 to 1996 but cancelled during this time period as part of diplom ...
, and quality relationships.
Inspection An inspection is, most generally, an organized examination or formal evaluation exercise. In engineering activities inspection involves the measurements, tests, and gauges applied to certain characteristics in regard to an object or activity. ...
is a major component of quality control, where physical product is examined visually (or the end results of a service are analyzed). Product inspectors will be provided with lists and descriptions of unacceptable
product defect A product defect is any characteristic of a product which hinders its usability for the purpose for which it was designed and manufactured. Product defects arise most prominently in legal contexts regarding product safety, where the term is applie ...
s such as cracks or surface blemishes for example.


History and introduction

Early
stone tools A stone tool is, in the most general sense, any tool made either partially or entirely out of stone. Although stone tool-dependent societies and cultures still exist today, most stone tools are associated with prehistoric (particularly Stone Ag ...
such as
anvil An anvil is a metalworking tool consisting of a large block of metal (usually forged or cast steel), with a flattened top surface, upon which another object is struck (or "worked"). Anvils are as massive as practical, because the higher th ...
s had no holes and were not designed as
interchangeable parts Interchangeable parts are parts ( components) that are identical for practical purposes. They are made to specifications that ensure that they are so nearly identical that they will fit into any assembly of the same type. One such part can freely r ...
.
Mass production Mass production, also known as flow production or continuous production, is the production of substantial amounts of standardized products in a constant flow, including and especially on assembly lines. Together with job production and batch ...
established processes for the creation of parts and system with identical dimensions and design, but these processes are not uniform and hence some customers were unsatisfied with the result. Quality control separates the act of
testing An examination (exam or evaluation) or test is an educational assessment intended to measure a test-taker's knowledge, skill, aptitude, physical fitness, or classification in many other topics (e.g., beliefs). A test may be administered verba ...
product Product may refer to: Business * Product (business), an item that serves as a solution to a specific consumer problem. * Product (project management), a deliverable or set of deliverables that contribute to a business solution Mathematics * Produ ...
s to uncover defects from the decision to allow or deny product release, which may be determined by fiscal constraints. For contract work, particularly work awarded by government agencies, quality control issues are among the top reasons for not renewing a contract. The simplest form of quality control was a sketch of the desired item. If the sketch did not match the item, it was rejected, in a simple
Go/no go A go/no go test is a two-step verification process that uses two boundary conditions, or a binary classification. The test is passed only when the ''go'' condition has been met and also the ''no go'' condition has been failed. The test gives no in ...
procedure. However, manufacturers soon found it was difficult and costly to make parts be exactly like their depiction; hence around 1840 tolerance limits were introduced, wherein a design would function if its parts were measured to be within the limits. Quality was thus precisely defined using devices such as
plug gauge A go/no-go gauge refers to an inspection tool used to check a workpiece against its allowed tolerances via a go/no-go test. Its name is derived from two tests: the check involves the workpiece having to pass one test (''go'') and fail the other ...
s and
ring gauge A ring gauge, or ring gage, is a cylindrical ring of a thermally stable material, often steel, whose inside diameter is finished to gauge tolerance and is used for checking the external diameter of a cylindrical object. Ring gauges are used for ...
s. However, this did not address the problem of defective items; recycling or disposing of the
waste Waste (or wastes) are unwanted or unusable materials. Waste is any substance discarded after primary use, or is worthless, defective and of no use. A by-product, by contrast is a joint product of relatively minor economic value. A waste prod ...
adds to the cost of production, as does trying to reduce the defect rate. Various methods have been proposed to prioritize quality control issues and determine whether to leave them unaddressed or use
quality assurance Quality assurance (QA) is the term used in both manufacturing and service industries to describe the systematic efforts taken to ensure that the product(s) delivered to customer(s) meet with the contractual and other agreed upon performance, design ...
techniques to improve and stabilize production.


Notable approaches

There is a tendency for individual consultants and organizations to name their own unique approaches to quality control—a few of these have ended up in widespread use:


In project management

In
project management Project management is the process of leading the work of a team to achieve all project goals within the given constraints. This information is usually described in project documentation, created at the beginning of the development process. Th ...
, quality control requires the project manager and/or the project team to inspect the accomplished work to ensure its alignment with the project scope. In practice, projects typically have a dedicated quality control team which focuses on this area.


See also

*
Analytical quality control Analytical quality control, commonly shortened to AQC, refers to all those processes and procedures designed to ensure that the results of laboratory analysis are consistent, comparable, accurate and within specified limits of precision Precision, ...
*
Corrective and preventative action Corrective and preventive action (CAPA or simply corrective action) consists of improvements to an organization's processes taken to eliminate causes of non-conformities or other undesirable situations. It is usually a set of actions, laws or regu ...
(CAPA) * Eight dimensions of quality * First article inspection (FAI) *
Good Automated Manufacturing Practice Good automated manufacturing practice (GAMP) is both a technical subcommittee of the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering (ISPE) and a set of guidelines for manufacturers and users of automated systems in the pharmaceutical industry ...
(GAMP) *
Good manufacturing practice Current good manufacturing practices (cGMP) are those conforming to the guidelines recommended by relevant agencies. Those agencies control the authorization and licensing of the manufacture and sale of food and beverages, cosmetics, pharmaceutica ...
*
Quality assurance Quality assurance (QA) is the term used in both manufacturing and service industries to describe the systematic efforts taken to ensure that the product(s) delivered to customer(s) meet with the contractual and other agreed upon performance, design ...
* Quality management framework *
Standard operating procedure A standard operating procedure (SOP) is a set of step-by-step instructions compiled by an organization to help workers carry out routine operations. SOPs aim to achieve efficiency, quality output, and uniformity of performance, while reducing misc ...
(SOP) *
QA/QC QA/QC is the combination of quality assurance, the process or set of processes used to measure and assure the quality of a product, and quality control, the process of ensuring products and services meet consumer expectations. "Quality assurance ...


References

*


Further reading

* * * * *


External links


ASTM quality control standards
{{Authority control Design for X Statistical process control Quality management