This article initiated due to one of our reader “Pravallika Choudary” asked one question about “Difference between quality assurance and quality control”. As a part of software testing questions I am explaining about basic differences between QA and QC. If you want to ask a question, just write a comment below or on Facebook page SoftwareTestingClass.
So let’s start with the introduction of Quality Assurance and Quality Control:
Quality Assurance (QA): The function of software quality that assures that the standards, processes, and procedures are appropriate for the project and are correctly implemented. Statistical Tools & Techniques can be applied in both Quality Assurance & Quality Control. When they are applied to processes (process inputs & operational parameters), they are called Statistical Process Control (SPC) & it becomes the part of Quality Assurance.
Quality Control (QC): The function of software quality that checks that the project follows its standards, processes, and procedures, and that the project produces the required internal and external (deliverable) products. When statistical tools & techniques are applied to finished products (process outputs), they are called as Statistical Quality Control (SQC) & comes under Quality Control.
Difference between Quality Assurance and Quality Control:
|
Quality Assurance |
Quality Control |
| Quality Assurance is a part of quality management process which concentrate on providing confidence that quality requirements will be fulfilled | Quality Control is a part of quality management process which concentrates on fulfilling the quality requirements. |
| Quality Assurance is a set of activities for ensuring quality in the processes by which products are developed. | Quality Control is a set of activities for ensuring quality in products. The activities focus on identifying defects in the actual products produced. |
| Quality Assurance is the process of managing for quality; | Quality Control is used to verify the quality of the output |
| The goal of Quality Assurance is to prevent introducing defects in the software application which help to improve the development and testing processes. | The goal of Quality Control is to identify the defects in the software application after it is developed. |
| QA is Pro-active means it identifies weaknesses in the processes. | QC is Reactive means it identifies the defects and also corrects the defects or bugs also. |
| It does not involve executing the program or code. | It always involves executing the program or code. |
| All peoples who are involved in the developing software application as responsible for the quality assurance. | Testing team is responsible for Quality control. |
| Quality Assurance is process oriented | Quality Control is product oriented |
| Quality Assurance basically aim to prevention of defects to improve the quality. | Quality Control basically aim to detection of defects to improve the quality. |
| It identifies weakness in processes to improve them. | It identifies defects to be fixed. |
| Verification is an example of Quality Assurance. | Validation/Software Testing is an example of Quality Control. |
| It is a staff function. | It is a line function. |
| It is done before Quality Control. | It is done only after Quality Assurance activity is completed. |
| Quality Assurance means Planning done for doing a process. | Quality Control Means Action has taken on the process by execute them. |
If you have any queries related to difference between Quality Assurance (QA) and Quality Assurance (QC) then please put question in below comment. I will be happy to address all the queries in comments or new article on same.
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20 thoughts on “Difference between Quality Assurance(QA) and Quality Control(QC)”
If QA is for “process”, and QC is for “product”, can we only implement only one of them? e.g., only do QC without QA.
can you please confirm whether the QA does the Verification and the QC does the Validation as well is it the White Box testing and Unit Testing one and the same or different
in QA you say : It does not involve executing the program or code.
and in the next line you say : All peoples who are involved in the developing software application as responsible for the quality assurance.
both are contradictory statements to each other
second line means developer is involved in this
first line says a tester is involved.
please Clarify!
the article some points are not clear,i do not know full knowledge i think QA is responsible for entire software development life cycle,QC is responsible for software testing life cycle.Qa is Prevention in nature,Qc is detection in nature.
It is done only after Quality Assurance activity is completed.
I can’t understand this point. please explain it.
I disagree with using ‘yin’ and ‘yang’ as the symbol to best describe quality assurance and quality control. Quality control activities monitor and verify that the project deliverables meet the defined quality standards. Quality assurance audits and activities monitor and verify that the processes used to manage and create the deliverables have been followed and are effective.
Quality management is comprised of Quality Planning, Quality Assurance, Quality Control, and Monitoring & Evaluating Quality management efforts.
Either QC is a part of QA ( QC comes under QA) or QA is part of QC ( QA comes under QC)?
Yogesh, the statements are not contradictory in the sense that development team’s involvement in QA is that they are made to follow approved processes and procedures in their development effort. The QA analyst is not necessarily reviewing the developer’s code, both is making sure that the developer is submitting his code for peer review sessions, used approved tools to check test his code and check it in, etc. There is a product or the developer is working towards delivering one, but the product is not being tested or validated for this (QA) effort, just the process that is being utilized for the production. This is just my two bit as to why the statements are not contradictory.
If we are works as per qa, detecting some discompling steps,
then who is the authority to comply the instruction of qa
plz give example on QA and QC and explain
Is testing QC or QA?
need to know which are all the QC tools being used?
Ruchi, Testing is a part of QC because QC is a set of activities for ensuring quality in products. These activities focus on identifying defects in the actual products that are being produced where as QA is a set of activities for ensuring quality in the processes by which products are being developed. In short, QA is process oriented and QC is product oriented.
Creating Test Cases and Executing Test Plans are two different processes ,which comes under QA or QC and why??
Is testing QA or QC
who will involved in the QA and who will invovlved in QC can u please give the clarification
I’ve been asked with project architecture explanation.
Please tell how I need to address
Hello Team ,
I was reading difference between QA and QC but when I scroll down your Join Our Premium Testing Classes form is getting overlapped on Quality Control difference. Please get it fix by your html dev. It is not looking nice.
Thanks
Sir, I m working in Small company from QA team. There is no business analyst in my company. So QA team will show demo to the client and the requirement from the client. After that we will discuss with M.D and we will prepare a srs document and we will hand over the document to the Dev team as well as we will explain the document to the Dev team in case if they doubts. After development completed, they will release the build to QA team. QA team will start testing and we will posted the bugs in bugzila tool. After fixing the bugs, once again QA Team will do retesting and if no bugs then QA team will go to the client place for implementation and QA TEAM will deploy the build in client system. Finally QA TEAM will support to the client also in case client have doubt in softwares as well as we will check in data bases if client want to delete the items from the tables. So I need clear clarification about my job whether I m testing engineer or Quality assurance engineer as well as I need full clarification abt my quality assurance dept as well as my job.
its really good explanation sir..thank you