It’s hard to define quality assurance without using the words quality or assurance. Quality assurance is quite literally any process that helps to assure quality in work. The work may be any business function, including manufacturing processes, administrative tasks, communications, customer experience, and software development, to name only a few. While quality assurance may sound simple, achieving it can be challenging without knowing the basics.
Individual company standards of both quality and assurance can vary significantly based on both industry and consumer expectations. For example, a firm that manufactures parts for aircraft engines must consistently adhere to highly precise measurements, else their parts won’t be purchased. On the other hand, a business that produces hand-crafted vases can accept a greater variation among items of a certain type and still be successful. The consumer purchasing the products or receiving the services plays an important role in defining quality.
Defining Quality
Start out by deciding what your business means when it refers to quality and make everyone aware of it. Each business unit or function will most likely have it’s own standard of quality. The accounting group might define quality as having balanced books within 5 days after a month ends. A customer service desk could set a quality standard of answering all calls within 60 seconds. An information technology group may set the standard of zero bugs in its software. These standards of quality are your expected results.
Measuring Quality
Once you’ve defined quality standards, establish how you’ll be measuring them. Without a measurement process, it will be nearly impossible to figure out what area needs improvement. Wherever possible, use a pass / fail system of measurement. This means either the quality standard was met or it wasn’t. Setting up a graduated system could lead to a “just good enough” mentality.The measurements must compare actual results against the expected results. Did you close the accounting books within 5 days? Did the service desk answer all calls within 60 seconds? Were there any bugs in the latest software? If you find yourself failing to meet your established quality standards, resist the urge to lower them. Instead, work towards improving internal business processes to meet the standards.
Track Quality Performance
Track these measurements over time so you can easily chart your progress and quickly pinpoint areas requiring immediate attention. Take measurements at established intervals that make sense for the business activity. The accounting group would measure monthly, the customer service desk could measure daily or even more frequently, and the information technology group would measure after every software release on an ongoing basis.
Raise Quality Standards
Occasionally revisiting the standards is a good idea, especially under changing business conditions. To drive continued improvement, try gradually raising your standards and closely watch the impact it has on your business. Be careful not to set the standards too high, else you risk spending substantial resources for little to no return on the effort. The following example illustrates this point.If the service desk reduced the expected call answer time quality standard from 60 seconds to 5 seconds, additional employees would need to be hired or the average call duration significantly reduced. More employees means a higher overall cost that could be difficult to recoup with additional sales. Perhaps customers don’t mind a 60 second wait time. The second option of reducing the average call duration means each employee must spend less time talking to customers, which may have a negative impact on sales.
The keys to quality assurance are publishing standards that make sense for your business, deciding how the standards will be measured, tracking performance over time, and gradually raising the standards until no further improvement can be achieved. Every industry, business, and business function is different, so discovering what works for you is important.