Quality Assurance vs Control Quality

What is the difference between Quality Assurance and Quality Control?
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ISO 9000 Definitions 1
• Quality Control : “A part of quality management focused on fulfilling quality requirements”.
• Quality Assurance : “A part of quality management focused on providing confidence that quality
requirements will be fulfilled.”

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Other Definitions 2
• Quality Assurance is defined as “All the planned and systematic activities implemented within the
quality system that can be demonstrated to provide confidence that a product or service will ful-
fill requirements for quality”.
• Quality Control is defined as “The operational techniques and activities used to fulfill requirements for quality”.

Improve this chart	Quality Assurance	Quality Control
Definition:	QA is a set of activities for ensuring quality in the processes by which products are developed.	QC is a set of activities for ensuring quality in products. The activities focus on identifying defects in the actual products produced.
Focus on:	QA aims to prevent defects with a focus on the process used to make the product. It is a proactive quality process.	QC aims to identify (and correct) defects in the finished product. Quality control, therefore, is a reactive process.
Goal:	The goal of QA is to improve development and test processes so that defects do not arise when the product is being developed.	The goal of QC is to identify defects after a product is developed and before it's released.
StatisticalTechniques:	Statistical Tools & Techniques can be applied in both QA & QC. When they are applied to processes(process inputs & operational parameters), they are called Statistical Process Control (SPC); & it becomes the part of QA.	When statistical tools & techniquesare applied to finished products (process outputs), they are called as Statistical Quality Control (SQC) & comes under QC.
What:	Prevention of quality problems through planned and systematic activities including documentation.	The activities or techniques used to achieve and maintain the product quality, process and service.
How:	Establish a good quality management system and the assessment of its adequacy & conformance audit of the operation system & the review of the system itself.	Finding & eliminating sources of quality problems through tools & equipment so that customer's requirements are continually met.
Example:	Verification is an example of QA	Validation/Software Testing is an example of QC
Responsibility:	Everyone on the team involved in developing the product is responsible for quality assurance.	Quality control is usually the responsibility of a specific team that tests the product for defects.