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Quality assurance, a system for constant control
Manufacturing, industrial and service organizations and enterprises that are managed with optimal and modern views in the macro-management perspective, base their management systems on quality and predetermined plans for every decision and move in their organization. have. To control such organizations, management can not devote all its time to examining the internal situation and different layers of the organization and instead uses the establishment of quality management systems, which are specifically assigned by a department called quality assurance in Managed industrial and service organs and organizations.
What does quality assurance mean?
Quality assurance (QA) is responsible for the important task of monitoring and inspection and regular and planned evaluation of various parts of a project, service, organization, system, which maximizes the possibility of meeting quality standards in the production process to the maximum level. Know a very, very important fact at the outset: Quality assurance certainly cannot guarantee the production of quality products.
Quality assurance is a set of standard, pre-determined and approved activities by which we can ensure that the organization offers the best product or service to its customers. On the other hand, quality assurance is the use of solutions to increase the satisfaction of customers, employers and various users of service organizations. In other words, quality assurance of a control valve is the level of users’ satisfaction with the organization’s production or services.
In the quality assurance section, there is a very accurate and sensitive attitude to the level of customer satisfaction.
Strong embankment against error
Quality assurance science offers standardized solutions to reduce the level of error in the performance of organizational forces. This part of the body of an organ or organization even prevents macro-management errors in decisions. An eye out of the main uproar is the activities around the management and different parts of the organization, which quickly identifies the location and the amount of errors and mistakes and offers a solution to solve it.
Quality control and quality assurance are two completely different categories
Subscribing to the word quality may confuse people who are not fully acquainted with the nature of these two sciences, but what is certain is that these two categories are very different, and their only commonality can be said to be the word quality. Quality assurance involves the implementation of measures in a quality system that achieves the goals of a product, service or activity. Systematic measurement, comparison with standards, inspection of trends and feedback to prevent errors. This can be the difference between quality assurance and quality control, which focuses on the output of trends.
Quality control deals with measuring and adapting the quality of a product or service to defined standards, but quality assurance deals with measuring, reviewing and improving the optimal performance level of the organization.
Expressing the difference with a deeper attitude
Quality control often involves general activities that carefully review the information obtained and calculated about the outcome of the process and use approved standard methods for publishing calculations and measurements, estimating and archiving information and reports. Quality Assurance (QA), on the other hand, is an external review system and a series of audit procedures performed by people outside the process. QA is often used only for the final product and process end, but an effective quality assurance program must evaluate all steps including planning, design, production, and quality control (QC) steps.
A brief history of quality assurance
The first signs of human tendency to discuss quality assurance based on existing documents date back to the Middle Ages. Yes, you may be surprised, but from the very beginning, human beings have had a higher percentage of improvement in their work and activity, and as a result, greater profitability. In Britain at the time, kings hired people with well-codified, pre-arranged reports to oversee the shipbuilding and naval sectors to reflect on progress and how they were doing without appearing in the workplace. .
Long after, wealthy countries at the time, such as Britain and Fars, and later the United States, set up organizations within the governing body to report on people’s satisfaction with governance or to report on the distribution of rations among the people. With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, this issue took on a very serious color and smell, and attitudes toward quality assurance in the factories of large industrialized countries became quite professional. The Industrial Revolution led to a system in which large groups of people Under the supervision of an officer assigned to control the quality of production work, they teamed up to form small and large units under different names from today’s quality assurance.
Right after the Industrial Revolution in Europe, company executives based on quality assurance teachings to study, design and create channels to communicate with their customers. It was quality.
Quality Assurance Activity Circle
There are no clear boundaries for the scope of activity and quality assurance accountability, from the large aerospace industry to the military industry and public services such as buses and hotels need quality assurance. Quality assurance is not limited to production and can be to commercial and non-commercial activities including design, consulting, banking, insurance, computer software production, wholesale, investment, transportation, education and translation, and even professional clubs. Be related to sports.
The quality assurance system has two aspects, internal and external.
Creates confidence within the organization to manage the organization.
Creates confidence for customers outside the organization.
How to have a dynamic quality assurance department in the organization?
In the first step to establish a quality assurance department in our air conditioning organization, we must have or create a quality-oriented attitude among managers and senior decision makers of the organization, it is certainly not possible for a completely traditional manager As a result of increased profitability spoke.
Consultants from outside the organization are usually used to set up the quality assurance department, in other words, they outsource the design and implementation of this unit. The reason for this is that designing and setting up quality assurance in today’s organizations is very complex and time consuming, which can not be done by the permanent managers of the company and requires free time and thought.
Today, many specialists have been formed with the establishment of educational institutions and companies to sign contracts to set up the quality assurance and training of the organization’s forces.
Quality Assurance Executor
In organizations, depending on their size and the type of service or products they offer, the quality assurance unit may have from one person to 100 people, even more. All of these people work under the supervision of the Quality Assurance Manager, who is also the representative of the management in the current quality management systems of that organization according to the standard of the Quality Assurance Manager of an organization.
The quality assurance manager or the management representative has many duties and is usually considered one of the best forces in the organization. Here are some of the duties of the quality assurance manager:
Planning to perform timely and correct tests and inspections required by the product or service provided by the organization as mentioned in the control plans or other technical documents
Planning and supervising the implementation of periodic audits, evaluating the quality of the product or service output.
Planning and periodically auditing production processes and providing appropriate solutions to production to reduce or eliminate deviations in processes
Background and supervision of good performance, monitoring and measurement of product or service according to control plans
Planning and monitoring the proper execution of measurement systems analysis to ensure the accuracy of measurement systems.
Grounding, planning and monitoring the implementation of statistical control of processes.
Analyzing customer complaints and returned products or their dissatisfaction with the services received to root out and eliminate their causes.
Collaborate with the financial unit in collecting, categorizing and reporting quality-related costs.
Investigate non-conformities and discrepancies observed in products and services and take corrective action and eliminate discrepancies.
Participate in the Quality Steering Committee.
Design and monitoring of quality management system.
Approve and supervise the implementation of all executive methods and the implementation of new methods.
Investigating deviations from acceptable standards and analyzing the causes of lesions and possible failure
Perform continuous improvement and assist units in achieving this goal.
Supervise the performance and effectiveness of management review sessions and follow it up.
Planning and conducting internal audits and preparing for various types of audits.
Perform procedures related to document control.
Doing all the work in the interests of the company.
Follow-up of the production line stop with the coordination of the factory manager or production in case of non-compliance.
Directing and directing all activities related to quality in order to achieve the quality goals of the organization
How the quality assurance department works
After designing and establishing the quality assurance department and introducing this unit as the sharp eye of management on the performance of the organization for all the different pillars, it is time for the head of this department, together with his colleagues, to design the performance processes of different parts of the organization.
After the processes of all departments and instructions are designed and approved by the management, quality assurance should provide the necessary training to the forces of each department in accordance with the defined process so that after completing the training courses, the forces can process the department well. Explain yourself and work based on it.
After the processes are fully established and after a period of usually six months, the quality assurance department conducts an internal audit in the organization and records the discrepancies and functional non-conformities of the various departments and plans to eliminate them.
Once a year, the quality assurance department coordinates and conducts the main audit of the organization by one or more audits performed by companies outside the organization.
In general, quality assurance is the supervisory eye of management to increase the level of performance of the organization. Quality assurance above all requires the integration and control of all elements within a set of operations, so that none of them are dependent on each other. These elements include aspects such as marketing, design, procurement, construction, installation, finance, administration, sales, commissioning, and even operation.
An example of a dynamic quality assurance unit
The quality assurance section is one of the most important parts of the alumina industrial production complex. Since one of the senior management approaches of this organization is continuous improvement and organizational excellence, therefore, the quality assurance department as a third eye is always present next to the management and has the serious task of controlling the performance of different parts of the organization. In this section, we will get acquainted with some of the main measures to ensure the quality of alumina.
Ensuring that the organization’s documents are under control.