Quality Assurance - Company Quality

Company Quality

During the 1980s, the concept of "company quality" with the focus on management and people came to the fore. It was realized that, if all departments approached quality with an open mind, success was possible if the management led the quality improvement process.

The company-wide quality approach places an emphasis on four aspects :-

1. Elements such as controls, job management, adequate processes, performance and integrity criteria and identification of records
2. Competence such as knowledge, skills, experience, qualifications
3. Soft elements, such as personnel integrity, confidence, organizational culture, motivation, team spirit and quality relationships.
4. Infrastructure (as it enhances or limits functionality)

The quality of the outputs is at risk if any of these aspects is deficient.

QA is not limited to the manufacturing, and can be applied to any business or non-business activity:

• Design work
• Administrative services
• Consulting
• Banking
• Insurance
• Computer software development
• Retailing
• Transportation
• Education
• Translation

It comprises a quality improvement process, which is generic in the sense it can be applied to any of these activities and it establishes a behavior pattern, which supports the achievement of quality.

This in turn is supported by quality management practices which can include a number of business systems and which are usually specific to the activities of the business unit concerned.

In manufacturing and construction activities, these business practices can be equated to the models for quality assurance defined by the International Standards contained in the ISO 9000 series and the specified Specifications for quality systems.

In the system of Company Quality, the work being carried out was shop floor inspection which did not reveal the major quality problems. This led to quality assurance or total quality control, which has come into being recently.