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QUALITY ASSURANCE
WHAT DOES IT REALLY MEAN?
By Danie van der Merwe
Before embarking on such a discussion we
should start off by defining the meaning of "Quality". Juran, a world renown
quality guru, defines quality simply as
"customer satisfaction". Philip B Crosby,
another quality guru, defines quality as "conformance to requirements". Both
definitions refer to someone's satisfaction, and in both cases it is the customer who must
be satisfied. Quality is therefore very much focused on the customer.
Juran goes further by defining the meaning of customer as "anyone who is impacted by the product or service". He then explains that customers are both internal and external.
External customers are those that we traditionally view as our end users, but internal
customers can include other employees, colleagues, etc. Each of these people receive an
output of a service or process that we perform.
Another interesting concept that is highlighted by these concise definitions is the
concept of measurement. Quality can, and must be measured. Because quality cannot be
touched, it is often thought that it therefore cannot be measured. The
"satisfaction" and "conformance" can be measured against what was
"required" by the customer. ISO9000, an international
quality management system, stresses the importance of a customer's requirements being
properly and accurately specified. Our product or service that we then deliver, must
conform or meet the customer's requirement, in order for the customer to perceive a
quality service. If you are in doubt about the customer's requirement or how to measure
it, ask the customer how he/she would perceive that a quality service or product was being
delivered. Invariably the customer will state certain time limits and other measurables
that are important in his/her perception of a quality service or product.
Traditional quality control "systems" used to make use of inspection and
testing, usually in a final phase, to reject services or products before they reached the
customer. This was well and fine for the customer as they did not see faulty products or
inferior services. But as numerous products had to be reworked, scrapped, etc all this
wastage was built into the cost of the service or product that the customer paid for.
Quality Assurance tries to reduce these "quality costs" by preventing them
happening in the first place. ISO9000 defines quality assurance as "all those planned and systematic actions necessary
to provide adequate confidence that a product or service will satisfy given requirements
for quality". Another way of saying this is
"the ability to demonstrate consistent compliance with requirements". Quality
Assurance is repeating good performance on every contract by the use of a system of
documented procedures which are known, understood and operated by all personnel. These
procedures are used when no other criteria are specified by the customer. Obviously,
customer specified criteria must take precedence if satisfaction is to be achieved, and in
these circumstances a degree of liability is assumed by the customer.
Quality Assurance offers control at each stage of the process so that it becomes very
difficult to create a reject product or service. If faults exist, they are identified and
corrected prior to any further value being added. This is what is meant by building
quality into a project or a process. It need not be an expensive way of doing things. It
can take the form of a checklist, each internal customer checking each stage of the
process before passing work on, data validation in a computer program, checking with a
customer before closing off his/her fault report, checking against a packing or delivery
note, the inclusion of milestones in a project, etc.
Quality Assurance has a wider meaning than just checking each stage of a process. It must
also address preventive and corrective action. These are steps that must be taken to
correct the fault, and to prevent it from occurring again. These concepts are further
expanded in an article covering the ISO9000 quality management
system and what it means to an organisation.
For those wanting to read further the following sources can be consulted:
* QUALITY PLANNING AND ANALYSIS by JM Juran and FM Gryna
* QUALITY IS FREE by Philip B Crosby
* QUALITY WITHOUT TEARS by Philip B Crosby
* SABS ISO9000 available from South African Bureau of Standards
* http://www.iso.ch and http://www.quality.co.uk/
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