Glossary · Evidence, assurance and traceability
Quality assurance
Also known as: QA
German: Qualitätssicherung
In quality management according to ISO 9000, quality assurance is the part of quality management focused on providing confidence that quality requirements will be fulfilled, through planned and systematic activities such as reviews, audits, process controls and records.
- Verification
- Functional safety
In one sentence
Quality assurance is the part of quality management that provides confidence that quality requirements will be fulfilled.
Example
Before a safety controller program is released, quality assurance checks that code reviews, test records and the change log are complete and approved according to the development procedure.
How it applies
- Process: Quality assurance focuses on the process: are the right activities planned, performed and recorded? This differs from quality control, which inspects the product itself.
- Functional safety: IEC 61508 and IEC 61511 rely on controlled processes to avoid systematic failures. Quality assurance supports this with document control, configuration management, reviews and audits, but functional safety management adds safety-specific requirements.
- Supply chain: Supplier qualification and incoming inspection help ensure that safety components match their specification and certificates.
- Documentation: Documents are both an object and a tool of QA. The documentation team should follow the same review, approval and release rules as engineering, and keep an Audit trail of changes to safety-relevant content.
Quality assurance vs. quality control
Quality assurance builds confidence that requirements will be met, mainly through process measures. Quality control checks whether a product or output actually meets the requirements, for example by testing. Both are parts of quality management.