[Quality Management] QUALITY CONTROL (QC) AND QUALITY ASSURANCE (QA)

Quality Control is the mechanism intended to achieve management’s intended characteristics of the company’s products and services. However, guidelines and directives may not always become implemented as intended. Someone needs to certify that the mechanisms actually are in place and working, hence, Quality Assurance. Business, governmental and military organizations have long used auditors (reviewers) to certify the existence of assets and prescribed records and to verify that operations are conducted as intended. Today’s QC and QA programs are merely extensions of long-established management practices, but they have acquired new names and forms tailored to the food industry The roles of these two functions, responsible for ensuring product quality, and their reporting relations to senior management, vary with the size of the company. They often are two separate entities in medium- and large-size companies.

• Quality Control works at the plant level to ensure that a consistent product is made on a daily basis, although ingredients may vary. The resident QC manager often typically reports to the plant manager and is empowered/expected to make process adjustments as required to produce the intended products. However, he/she is not authorized to change the products themselves. QC personnel often are assigned additional responsibilities since they have the best technical training among resident employees.

• Quality Assurance works company-wide to ensure that products reaching customers are as intended, that other functions affecting product characteristics (including purchasing, production, quality control) also are operating as intended, and that the technical requirements of various regulators are met—in a sense keeping the company out of trouble. While objectives for the Quality Control group are set internally in the company, often the QA group also is expected to identify the expected technical requirements of regulators for various product lines, and recommend and help implement corporate-approved programs before the company is found in violation or fined. Examples of corporate-wide QA programs include preparing the company to meet new product labelling requirements, Good Manufacturing Practices and Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Programs as implementation deadlines draw near, and later ensuring that the added programs are being followed. Like the QC staff in its environment, QA personnel often are called on for technical matters at the corporate level
  because of their knowledge. The QA supervisor typically reports to a separate corporate officer, with policy-setting powers, to insulate against pressures that might be put on the program by other operating departments. 

Other Quality Assurance functions may include:

—Having samples of products picked up throughout the country by private services for periodic examination of their condition in supermarkets.

—Being the official repository of ingredients purchasing, product production, and quality control manuals for the company—often to ensure they are on record.

—Being aware of the extent and nature of consumer complaints regarding specific products and recommending corrective reviews as appropriate. 

—Auditing the operating groups (purchasing, production, quality control, and distribution) to ensure procedural manuals are kept current and followed.

—Participating in approving self-certified suppliers, customers are as intended, that other functions affecting product characteristics (including purchasing, production, quality control) also are operating as intended, and that the technical requirements of various regulators are met—in a sense keeping the company out of trouble. While objectives for the Quality Control group are set internally in the company, often the QA group also is expected to identify the expected technical requirements of regulators for various product lines and recommend and help implement corporate-approved programs before the company is found in violation or fined. Examples of corporate-wide QA programs include preparing the company to meet new product labelling requirements, Good Manufacturing Practices and Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Programs as implementation deadlines draw near, and later ensuring that the added programs are being followed. Like the QC staff in its environment, QA personnel often are called on for technical matters at the corporate level

because of their knowledge. The QA supervisor typically reports to a separate corporate officer, with policy-setting powers, to insulate against pressures that might be put on the program by other operating departments.

Other Quality Assurance functions may include:

—Having samples of products picked up throughout the country by private services for periodic examination of their condition in supermarkets.

—Being the official repository of ingredients purchasing, product production, and quality control manuals for the company—often to ensure they are on record.

—Being aware of the extent and nature of consumer complaints regarding specific products and recommending corrective reviews as appropriate.

—Auditing the operating groups (purchasing, production, quality control, and distribution) to ensure procedural manuals are kept current and followed.

—Participating in approving self-certified suppliers.  

—Ensuring that a product recall program exists, in case of need.
—Recruiting consultants or private inspection services to audit various operating functions for a third-party evaluation of their performance.
—Advising senior management on what proposed technical legislation may mean to company operations to assist a company response and testimony at legislative hearings.
—Identifying and assessing potential problems for which a company may want to prepare a technical readiness.