Quality assurance (QA) and audits are completely two different areas that are fulfilling similar objective: enhancement in quality, regularity and authenticity in operations. Quality assurance is implemented in an industry through various operating policies and regulations. Conducting an audit is comparatively much more specific than quality assurance Audits are used to carry out an investigation of a particular field of operation. Audits can be performed to figure out the reliability of operations in diverse range of operations for example: production, information technology, accounting, sales and marketing, human resources etc. According to experts at ExpertAssignmentHelp one must get a thorough understanding of these two methods and how they are related to each other terms for increased growth, productivity and progress of a company.

Quality Assurance

Quality assurance methods supervise the vast range of operations and checks outputs to figure out possibilities of failure and scope of improvement. This helps to ensure that the deliverable is consistent in quality and conforms to the industry standards. This is one of the many professional practices in IT Project Management. Some reputed companies, knows the importance of Quality Assurance and so either they dedicate a group of talented people to accomplish this job or appoint a quality assurance manager to assess the quality of output of simplex to complex programs. In Information Industry, Quality Assurance is a procedure that is formulated to get the management as well consumer into confidence that all of their products and services will be of superior quality to provide maximum customer satisfaction. If a firm invests a large amount of money in developing advanced software applications, then management needs to be reassured that their IT manpower will make the best use of their skills and available resources to render best of services in return. In other words, companies should receive more than what they have invested. Consumers also get the all the features that they wish to get into their product on agreeable time and money. Management needs to have this confidence before investing huge capital and throughout the process of application development.

Depending upon the area of operation, Quality assurance can be accomplished through a well-defined series of steps. QA managers closely analyze the way a software is developed and checks its quality at all stages of SDLC (Software development life cycle) against a set of parameters. If Quality Assurance is done in an IT industry then it may begin with the random checking of resources, infrastructure, checking the performance of methods with different inputs, testing the quality of resultant software, capital invested and utilized in the development of software, does it fulfil the project objectives etc.

The following steps are performed as a part of Quality Assurance:

• Process assurance

  In this step the software development processes are checked to make sure they are well documented. This is achieved by way of reviewing projects and audits.

• Product assurance

  As the name suggests, in this step the quality of the product is checked to ensure that the product is developed in compliance with the consumer’s requirements. This is achieved by way of verifying each product with its specification and validating the final output against the consumer’s requirements

• Quality system assurance

  In this step quality management system audits check whether the system conforms to Industry standards and best practices and in accordance as per ISO 90011 and other standards as mentioned in the contract.

What is Auditing?

According to information security assignment help expert, audits deal in all the areas where a company performs its operations. Different companies perform their audit in a different way. Some companies may choose to carry out their own internal audits to exercise complete control over the audit procedures, while others may choose to hire the services of a third-party auditor to perform investigation methods to uncover hidden issues which the company has overseen in their own investigations.

Quality Assurance Audits

Quality assurance audits can basically evaluate the performance of Quality Assurance processes. The fundamental job of Quality Assurance audits is to determine the effectiveness of a Quality Assurance process of finding and minimizing errors in the various phases of software development. Along with that, it offers feedback to enhance Quality Assurance efforts. The work of Quality Assurance is not just limited to identifying and inspecting mistakes to generate quality performance metrics but also takes into consideration a comprehensive range of factors that is accomplished to result into a final product. It encompasses a series of strict and continuous review of factors like communication, integrity, reliability and teamwork, which finally results into a high quality product and service.

Quality Assurance Advantages

Quality assurance support this statement that faulty products are the result of faulty processes. So identification and improvement in the quality of the process will improve the quality of the product. Quality Assurance gives below mentioned advantages to a company:

• Increase demand and craze among customers

  By conducting efficient Quality Assurance programs an organization can give a proof of its quality to its consumers. For Ex: Products which conform to industry standards – ISO 9001 are high on demand and successful too among consumers

• Quick and easy identification and resolution of issues

  Quality assurance helps in figuring out problematic areas and areas which needs improvement before the development of the final product.

• Satisfaction for management and consumers

  A sound and efficient quality assurance program gives an organization confidence that quality management rules are being followed diligently and the resultant product would be of the best quality.