How to improve oneself on the path of quality management

You work in QA – could you tell me what your specific tasks are? Don’t think you’re standing still; in fact, there’s still a lot you need to learn*.

Can you figure out the difference between QA and QC?

Reply to 3#: By some coincidence, QA stands for Quality Assurance, which refers to the inspection of finished products, as well as defect analysis and handling of customer complaints； QC mainly includes incoming material inspection and in-process inspection.

Learning is endless. 1. Keep learning new knowledge in quality management； 2. Continuously summarize experiences and lessons in quality management ； 3. Actively promote new quality management methods ； 4. Continuously explore new approaches to quality management.

I used to not understand what QA and QC meant. The following is information I thought I found online; I’ve forgotten where exactly, so let’s learn about it together: One day, I happened to meet a new employee and asked if I could explain to him what QC meant What does QA mean, and what are the differences between them? It seems they are all from your quality control department; why do they need to wear two different badges? I’m speechless; I thought such a simple question wouldn’t give rise to such doubts and confusion. To better answer the questions above, I’ll share my views on them. QC: Quality Control, referring to the inspection of product quality, as well as the analysis, improvement efforts, and management of defective products in case such issues are detected; it is an umbrella term for the personnel involved in these tasks. It generally includes IQC (Incoming Quality Control, inspection of incoming materials), IPQC (In-Process Quality Control, inspection during production), FQC (Final Quality Control, inspection of finished products), and OQC (Outgoing Quality Control, inspection before shipment). Some companies, without much consideration, refer to the entire quality control department as simply QC. QC focuses on products rather than systems (frameworks); this is its main difference from QA. Its goal is the same as QA’s, which is to \"meet or exceed customer requirements.\" ” QA: Quality Assurance, which refers to the process of ensuring that product quality is satisfactory by establishing and maintaining quality management systems. It generally includes system engineers, SQE (Supplier Quality Engineer), CTS (Customer Technical Service personnel), 6sigma engineers, as well as personnel responsible for the calibration and management of measuring instruments. QA needs to know not only where the problems lie but also how to formulate solutions for them and how to prevent such problems in the future. QC needs to know to take action when problems arise, but does not necessarily need to understand why such actions are required. To use an inappropriate analogy, QC is like the police, while QA is like **. QC merely arrests those who violate the law; it cannot prevent others from committing crimes or determine their guilt. On the other hand, ** is responsible for creating laws to prevent crime and issuing judgments based on those laws. To summarize, QC: It mainly involves post-event quality inspection activities, with errors being tolerated by default. It is expected to discover and select errors. QA mainly refers to pre-event quality assurance activities that focus on prevention. It is hoped to reduce the likelihood of errors occurring. QC refers to the techniques and activities employed to ensure that products meet quality requirements. It includes inspection, correction, and feedback – for example, after QC inspections reveal defective items, those items are removed, and information about the defects is sent to the relevant departments so that corrective actions can be taken. Therefore, the scope of QC’s control is mainly within the factory, with the aim of preventing defective products from being released into further production stages or shipped out. This ensures that products meet quality standards, and only qualified products are delivered to customers. QA, on the other hand, aims to build trust among customers by ensuring that they are confident that the products provided meet their requirements. To achieve this, it is necessary to keep records at various stages, starting from market research, through customer requirement assessment, product development, order processing, material procurement, incoming material inspection, production process control, shipping, and after-sales service. These records serve to prove that every step in the factory’s operations is carried out in accordance with customer requirements. The purpose of QA is not to guarantee product quality, as that is the role of QC; rather, QA provides confidence by managing the entire process from understanding customer requirements to after-sales service. This requires companies to establish a quality management system, develop appropriate documents to regulate various processes, and keep evidence of these activities in order to build trust. This trust can be divided into two types: external, which means satisfying customers by ensuring that they believe the factory produces and delivers products according to their requirements; and internal, which means reassuring factory owners, as they are ultimately responsible for product quality and must bear full responsibility in case of any quality issues. This is also the main reason why countries enact laws regarding product quality, in order to encourage companies to truly prioritize quality. Therefore, in order to avoid taking responsibility for quality issues, factory owners must regulate all activities through documents and keep evidence of them. However, it is impossible for owners to know for sure whether employees are following the document requirements, which is why QA is needed to conduct audits to verify compliance with these requirements, thereby assuring owners that all factory activities are carried out as specified. Thus, the main difference between QC and QA is that QC ensures that product quality meets specified standards, while QA establishes a system and ensures its proper operation in order to build both internal and external trust. At the same time, QC and QA share some similarities: both involve verification. For example, QC checks products against standards to verify whether they meet the required specifications, while QA conducts internal audits to ensure that the system operates in line with standards. Additionally, QA performs inspections before shipment and reliability tests to verify that products have gone through all necessary procedures and meet the required standards, ensuring that all products delivered by the factory are qualified and compliant. Job responsibilities of QC and QA: QC 1. Participate in maintaining and overseeing the operation of the quality management system, as well as organizing and managing internal quality audits ； 2. Monitor the actual progress of on-site inspection work for the project, including personnel organization, technical implementation, quality, schedule, safety, and protection of finished products ； 3. Report batch quality issues in a timely manner, and ensure prompt transmission of information regarding non-conformities ； 4. To correct quality issues, the right exists to halt production on site ； 5. Management of inspection tools, maintenance of lists ； 6. Every day at work, gather team members for a handover meeting and task allocation, along with brief training ； 7. When the QC or production department reports quality issues, go to the site to verify the situation and provide preliminary guidance ； 8. If new materials arrive, verify whether the manufacturer of those new materials is a qualified subcontractor ； 9. Regularly check on a daily basis whether the reports filled out by team members are accurate (every three to four hours) ； 10. In the event of new product production, monitor its quality and compile the information for QE ； 11. Study the product inspection specifications and train team members on their use ； 12. Train new employees and help them become competent for their roles ； 13. Conduct regular daily inspections of the compliance with production discipline at the production site, and report the results to higher authorities ； 14. Collect data daily and conduct assessment and analysis of team members ； 15. Submit overtime requests and track team members’ overtime status ； 16. Assist the quality supervisor with other tasks related to the quality management system. QA 1. Monitor the process status, assess the impact of changes in process parameters on the products, and justify the rationality of the set parameters ； 2. Develop quality control plans based on the overall quality status of the company, and monitor the quality of products throughout their production process; 3. Regularly evaluate the processes or control plans in use ； 4. Establish product quality inspection standards; 5. Handle customer feedback and improve quality control based on it ； 6. Summarize product quality issues and urge relevant departments to resolve them promptly ； 7. Analyze process capability to facilitate quality improvement; 8. Accept process flows, control plans, and engineering change notices ； 9. To correct quality issues, the right exists to halt production on site ； 10. Make a decision on how to handle defective products ； 11. Assist in tracking the usage of products and provide suggestions for improvement ； 12. Assist superiors in analyzing, addressing, and resolving customer quality issues, meeting the quality requirements of both internal and external customers, and continuously improving product quality satisfaction. 13. Develop new product quality management plans and monitor their implementation to ensure that the quality level of these new products meets the set objectives ； 14. Collaborate with the technical department on the trial production of new products and quality control ； 15. Analyze the causes of failure in the final product and intermediate products, and propose improvement solutions ； 16. In the event of introducing new suppliers, assist the relevant departments in conducting quality inspections on them ； 17. Complete other tasks assigned by superiors. ` It can be seen that the scope of QA’s responsibilities is not broad enough, and it fails to meet the requirement of \"providing customers with the confidence that their needs will be met.\" This is a weakness of many companies in China, including large enterprises. It represents the sum total of various awarenesses, standards, value orientations, guidelines for action, ways of thinking, customs, and traditional concepts related to quality issues that naturally develop within an organization. Quality, as a culture and concept, is permeating all aspects of social life. Tradition: “Quality is the lifeblood of a company.” “Life says that \"it is merely the minimum requirement for quality management; it can only sustain existence but not enable development.\" Moreover, the \"life philosophy\" is self-centered, emphasizing the company while neglecting the customers. Today: “Improving quality is a corporate social responsibility.” This concept of quality is extended to all aspects of social life, combining technical standards, environmental standards, and ethical standards in order to achieve the optimal lifecycle cost. There was a factory manager whose company’s products ranked last in an industry evaluation, and he immediately dismissed the head of the quality control department. By the time of the evaluation in the following year, this company ended up in second-to-last place again. The factory manager was confused: “How is it that even after I removed the head of the quality department, the quality still isn’t good?” ” In fact, phenomena like this exist in many companies in the country. Viewing a company’s quality improvement and management as the task of a single department represents a narrow understanding of quality management. Of course, many companies have also tried various methods for quality improvement and management, from \"Total Quality Management\" to \"Quality Awards\", from ISO 9000 to Six Sigma, but there seem to be few successful cases. Why is this the case? What is preventing their success? 　　Most domestic company executives place great emphasis on quality management, but the results are not satisfactory because these companies have five major problems: they approach all their efforts as a quick-fix solution rather than as part of an ongoing process ； All of these solutions are implemented at the grassroots level of the organization ； The executors actually all hold a skeptical attitude ； Training materials are all “taken for granted” to be developed by their own training departments ； The management has no patience to wait for the results. 　Clearly, these companies are looking for a \"miracle cure,\" hoping to find among the vast array of management tools those that are suitable for their own businesses. Today is TQM, tomorrow it’s ISO, and the day after that it’s Six Sigma. In fact, they often only deal with things superficially, treating symptoms rather than root causes, which only leads to new problems arising once the old ones are solved. Yang Gang believes that if management methods are not synchronized with and continuously updated in line with corporate culture changes, failure is inevitable. 　　In the manufacturing industry, 20% of operating revenue is spent on fixing defective products, while the service industry spends 35% of its operating costs on redoing tasks that were done incorrectly. By adopting a quality management system that prevents errors in advance, only minimal costs are required for educating and training employees as well as adjusting work processes, which saves the company a significant amount of money – in other words, things are done correctly from the very first time. This is the core requirement of \"zero-defect\" quality management. 　“\"Zero defects\" is a term coined by quality management expert Dr. Crosby. It’s not saying that people shouldn’t make mistakes; rather, it means that there must be a determination and attitude to get it right on the first try and meet all requirements. When it comes to mistakes, even the most minor ones, they are never overlooked; the causes must be eliminated to prevent them from occurring again. “The “zero-defect management” approach has four key elements: First, quality must meet the objective requirements of customers and the market; once a commitment is made, it must be fulfilled. Therefore, the true essence of quality is integrity, not just being ‘good’” ； Second, quality issues need to be prevented rather than detected and addressed after the fact; senior management must maintain continuous oversight and assessment of the system ； Third, the work standard is “zero defects,” which means getting things right on the first attempt, rather than just getting them more or less right ； Fourth, the criterion for measuring quality is that those that do not meet the requirements will have to pay a price, rather than using indices. 　“The introduction of \"zero defects\" changed a mistaken notion that quality is solely the responsibility of the quality control department. In fact, within a company, quality issues are closely related to everyone, and the role of the quality control department is to work together with people from all departments to carry out prevention measures. - China Rubber Network – rubber technology consulting, rubber formula database, specialty rubbers, rubber forums, rubber industry professionals, rubber training; the most professional website in the rubber industry. The quality of results depends entirely on the depth of understanding of the \"zero-defect\" management philosophy and the extent to which it is put into practice. The deeper the understanding, the more elements of \"zero-defect\" management can be applied in practice, and the better the results; otherwise, the results will be poorer. Moreover, “zero defect” management is not contradictory to any other good management methods; in fact, it can make those other methods more effective. ” 　　Whenever people hear the term “zero defects,” they first understand it to mean “no defects in the products,” yet product quality issues are widespread. Therefore, some business leaders say to quality managers who advocate for a \"zero-defect\" approach: \"Let’s be practical; don’t set unattainable goals. Let’s focus on solving the problems at hand first.\" ”So these companies are still plagued by a host of problems and fail to find a way out. They say that quality is important, but they just don’t know how to achieve it Some increase the intensity of oversight, conducting evaluations whenever quality issues arise, thinking that by doing so management will be properly enforced and quality will improve. But in reality, the quality of the company’s operations did not improve at all; in fact, it deteriorated further. As a result, they assumed that their employees were of low quality and lacked the motivation to work diligently, without ever considering that their own improper management methods were the cause. 　“The original meaning of “zero defects” emphasizes a determination and a mindset – namely, the refusal to compromise on mistakes! This uncompromising attitude is manifested in two ways: first, it involves never ignoring any minor issue, but rather thoroughly investigating its causes to resolve it completely; second, it entails taking the most proactive, serious, and cautious approach to prevent problems from arising. Preventing problems from occurring is the highest level of quality management; the result of this is that a company’s products meet customers’ requirements, meaning the products are free of defects. This is entirely a result of management. Therefore, “zero defects” can be regarded as a code of conduct in work, as well as a management requirement for employees. “\"Zero defect\" management also emphasizes the creation of a corporate quality culture, which is centered around four core values: \"meeting requirements,\" \"prevention,\" \"getting it right the first time,\" and \"the cost of non-compliance.\" From these values, a series of behavioral guidelines are derived. When everyone in an organization does this, a superior quality culture is created. An organization with such a quality culture is a \"reliable organization,\" which is the ultimate goal that \"zero defect\" management strives to achieve. 'Only by correctly understanding the true meaning of \"zero defects\" can one adopt the right actions and achieve the desired results, which in turn generates strong motivation to implement zero-defect management. The parts in red font are the information I found; I hope it will be helpful to LZ. The following was learned during the learning process: quality control is a part of quality management, and it is aimed at meeting requirements. It involves standards, measurement results, and determining whether the expected requirements are met; it also entails taking actions to address quality issues and prevent their occurrence. Quality control is not inspection – it is the process of ensuring that the products manufactured meet the required standards. Quality assurance is a part of quality management, dedicated to providing confidence that quality requirements will be met. Internal quality assurance is the trust that an organization provides to its own managers, while external quality assurance is the trust that an organization provides to customers or other parties. The above information is gathered by me personally; if there are any inaccuracies, please feel free to point them out.

QA is the abbreviation for QUALITY ASSURANCE in English; its meaning in Chinese is quality assurance. In ISO8402:1994, it is defined as “all planned and systematic activities carried out within a quality management system, and verified as needed, in order to provide sufficient confidence that an entity can meet quality requirements.” Some organizations that implement ISO9000 establish departments or positions responsible for the quality assurance functions required by the ISO9000 standards; the people who carry out these tasks are known as QA personnel. QC is short for QUALITY CONTROL, and its meaning in Chinese is quality control. In ISO9000:2005, it is defined as “a part of quality management that is focused on meeting quality requirements.” The role of QC mainly involves the inspection of finished products, raw materials, and auxiliary materials. QA, on the other hand, is responsible for ensuring quality across the entire company, including the approval of finished products, raw materials, and auxiliary materials, as well as the proper functioning of the quality management system. In the history of quality management, “QC” emerged first; shipping products only after they have been inspected is the most fundamental requirement of quality management. The QC function is responsible for monitoring and controlling the production process, as well as for collecting and analyzing process data, and it provides relevant information to other departments. My understanding is that QA operates at a higher level than QC; it focuses more on the systemic and macro-level aspects, but it also deals with micro-level issues such as customer feedback and complaints. It emphasizes improving the company through systems and procedures in order to prevent certain problems from occurring. He requires staff to have a higher and stronger level of awareness, to identify recurring patterns in quality issues, and to make improvements through systems and procedures. QC is what we commonly refer to as quality inspection; it is responsible for quality control and testing during the product manufacturing process. It focuses on addressing specific minor quality issues, with an emphasis on inspection techniques, mastery of standards and specifications, and proper implementation of manufacturing processes. Looking at domestic manufacturers, QA/QC functions are primarily found in state-owned enterprises, or enterprises that have been transformed from state-owned ones; the larger the state-owned enterprise, the more standardized the setup of these two departments is. However, in terms of the quality of personnel, QA staff often go through the motions; they focus on superficial things rather than being practical, and there are quite a few freeloaders as well as those who hold positions simply because of their age ； QC staff are practical, but they often find themselves caught between higher and lower management, which affects their commitment and enthusiasm for work. I suggest that young people should start by working in QC, learning some practical skills, so as to lay a solid foundation for doing QA well.

Don’t people in quality management sometimes have a lot of free time? I’ve noticed this in two companies.

Reply to 7# By some coincidence, some companies also have QE – Quality Engineers, and ISO specialists – who are responsible for tasks related to the ISO system as well as customer audits.