Quality assurance means all the systematic and planned activities executed within the quality system give confidence that the project will meet the applicable quality standards.
It also comprises the examination of data at stations and centres to validate that the data are in line with the quality system goals, and to identify errors so that the required action could be taken on time.
A quality system should incorporate procedures that allow to feed back into the measurement and quality control process to avoid the errors from occurring again.
We can apply quality assurance in real-time post measurement, and can also feed into the quality control process for the subsequent process of a quality system, but usually it tends to operate in non-real time.
Inputs to quality assurance
Apart from the quality management plans and operational definitions discussed under inputs to quality planning, the inputs to quality assurance includes the following:
Results of quality control measurements: These are the records of quality control testing and measurement for comparison and analysis. Tools and techniques for quality assurance
Quality audit: It is a structured review of other quality management activities. Quality audit may be carried out by properly trained in-house auditors or by third parties such as quality system registration agencies.
Outputs from quality assurance
Quality improvement: It includes all the actions taken for increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of the project to provide added benefits to the project stakeholders.
