What began as a
standard to control defects in manufacturing sector, has now become an
indispensable component to maintain the customer satisfaction level across
verticals. Even services sectors, where consumption level varies, are
increasingly adopting Quality assurance practices to standardize delivery. Not to mention, Quality assurance principles
and technologies are meticulously practiced and continuously overhauled in
customer centric and quality conscious companies.
Quality assurance is a way to ascertain that the
final deliverables both as a product and as a service, conform to approved
standards; are error-free and stack up against the
customer satisfaction level. A product manufactured by a company or services
rendered by an IT/Software Services company, both can be perfected by applying
QA assurance practices.
Even within a company, the work-in-progress
status quo is subjected to quality assurance by the subsequent receiving
department, to ensure optimum quality of deliverables. Thus, quality
assurance should be viewed as a scope for “continual improvement, which
is an integral part of Quality Assurance Testing.
Quality
assurance testing has an ever-exploratory scope. During the process of
quality assurance testing, mistakes/ defects in the intermediary stages of the
products/ services are highlighted, offering ways for immediate corrective
actions and a permanent solution through preventive actions. Thus, quality testing is a never-ending process
which is subjected to regular audits and inspections by company’s staff,
external inspectors including the certifying institutions.
Quality
assurance covers organization of input materials (raw materials/ assemblies/
components/ products), their management and other processes like inspection,
testing, etc. There are famous institutions and laboratories, specializing in QA
services for their clients, both at domestic/ national and international levels.
Total quality management, often referred to as TQM, is the development of
quality assurance. It includes quality management systems, consisting of
procedural documentation, periodical analysis of the data, auditing and
application of many principles like Six Sigma, MSA (Measurement System
Analysis), FMEA, APQP and QFD.
The companies
rendering QA
services should possess sufficient proactive capabilities to be able to
achieve better business transformation by delivering prompt, punctual and
perfect results so that time bound programs of marketing and customers’
expectations are duly met. To meet these missions and visions, the companies
will have experienced and dedicated test consultants, most of them are required
to be certified test professionals; equipped with wealth of testing equipment’s
and tools, strategic alliances with the leading companies, besides long and
renowned presence in the respective fields.
The test scope
for both Desktop and web-application are comprehensive. It may include testing of
applications, delivery models, feature and functionality, performance,
infrastructure, security, load or SQC (Statistical Quality Control). The core
benefits of the quality assurance testing would span into reduction or
avoidance of production defects, increased productivity, reduction in
operational costs and the like.
