Quality Assurance (QA): Best Practices to Create Them

Quality assurance (QA) plays a crucial role in delivering high-quality products and services. Whether you’re running a tech company, a manufacturing plant, or a customer service business, implementing quality assurance checks ensures that your business consistently meets both customer expectations and regulatory standards.

QA is a proactive process aimed at preventing issues from occurring in the first place. Companies that implement well-designed quality assurance processes can see up to a 25% increase in efficiency and profitability.

But how do you streamline your QA process to make it more efficient, reliable, and adaptable? 

In this blog, we’ll dive into the best practices for quality assurance, explain what QA actually does, and provide a simple checklist to get started.

What Does Quality Assurance Do?

Before we jump into the best practices, it’s essential to understand what quality assurance (QA) actually involves. QA is a set of activities aimed at ensuring that products or services meet certain quality standards before they reach the customer. It’s a proactive process that focuses on identifying potential problems before they occur, which makes it different from quality control (QC), which focuses on identifying and correcting defects after they’ve been found.

QA teams work across different stages of a product’s development lifecycle, making sure that everything—from design to production—is aligned with the desired quality standards.

Some key activities in QA include:

• Establishing clear processes: Defining how work should be done to maintain consistent quality.
• Regular audits and checks: Reviewing whether the processes are being followed and are effective.
• Risk management: Identifying potential areas where things could go wrong and planning to prevent them.
• Feedback loops: Collecting feedback from customers and team members to continuously improve processes.

According to the American Society for Quality, companies that implement well-designed QA programs can see a 25% increase in efficiency and profitability . This makes it clear that QA isn’t just about avoiding problems—it’s about optimizing your entire workflow.

Quality Assurance (QA) vs Quality Control (QC)

Quality Assurance is a systematic set of activities designed to ensure that quality requirements will be fulfilled. It differs fundamentally from Quality Control:

• Quality Assurance (QA): Proactive, process-oriented approach focused on preventing defects by establishing good practices and procedures
• Quality Control (QC): Reactive, product-oriented approach focused on identifying and correcting defects in the final product

QA encompasses the entire product or service lifecycle, from initial design to delivery and customer feedback. It provides confidence to stakeholders that quality requirements will be met consistently.

Core Quality Assurance Principles

Effective quality assurance is built on two fundamental principles:

• "Fit for Purpose" – This principle ensures products or services are suitable for their intended use and meet customer requirements.
• "Right First Time" – This principle emphasizes eliminating errors at the source, aiming to get things right from the beginning rather than fixing problems later.

These principles guide all QA processes, procedures, and best practices, creating a foundation for quality-focused organizations.

Quality Assurance Processes

Quality assurance processes are systematic activities that organizations implement to monitor and verify quality. The essential QA processes include:

1. Quality Planning: Identifying applicable standards, determining compliance approaches, documenting verification methods, and creating quality metrics.
2. Process Development and Documentation: Defining procedural steps, creating standardized work instructions, documenting specifications, and establishing record-keeping.
3. Quality Audits and Reviews: Conducting internal audits, management reviews, process evaluations, and documentation reviews to verify effectiveness.
4. Corrective and Preventive Action (CAPA): Identifying root causes, implementing solutions, preventing recurrence, and verifying effectiveness.
5. Continuous Improvement: Collecting and analyzing data, identifying trends, implementing improvements, and measuring impacts.
6. Training and Development: Identifying required competencies, developing training programs, evaluating effectiveness, and maintaining records.

Quality Assurance Procedures

Quality assurance procedures are detailed, documented methods that transform QA processes into actionable steps:

• Document Control: Instructions for creating, revising, controlling, and archiving documents
• Inspection and Testing: Methods for inspections, quality checks, testing, and handling non-conformities
• Calibration: Guidelines for identifying equipment needs, establishing frequencies, performing calibration, and documentation
• Internal Audits: Structured approaches for planning, preparing, conducting, documenting, and following up
• Training: Standardized methods for assessing needs, developing materials, conducting sessions, and evaluating results
• Change Management: Systematic steps for proposing, evaluating, approving, implementing, and verifying changes

QA Best Practices

Now that you know what QA is, let’s look at how to streamline your quality assurance checks to make them more effective.

1. Define Clear Quality Standards

The first step in any QA process is to establish the quality standards your company wants to meet. These standards should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). Without clear standards, it’s impossible to judge whether something passes or fails a QA check.

For example, if you’re a software development company, your standards might include things like:

• No critical bugs in any released version.
• Code meets security compliance standards.
• System performance does not degrade under stress.

On the other hand, in manufacturing, your standards might be:

• Products are free from defects.
• Packaging meets safety standards.
• Machines operate within prescribed tolerances.

By clearly defining these standards, you’re laying the groundwork for consistent, high-quality outputs.

2. Create an Efficient Checklist for Quality Assurance Checks

Creating a QA checklist is an essential part of streamlining the process. This is the backbone of your QA efforts—it ensures that nothing gets overlooked. Here’s a simple QA checklist template you can adapt for your business:

1. Define the Scope: What product or process is being evaluated?
2. List the Criteria: What are the quality standards you’re checking against?
3. Create Milestones: Break the process into stages—what should be checked at each stage?
4. Record Results: Are the standards being met? Where are the deficiencies?
5. Follow-Up Actions: If something fails, what are the next steps to fix it?

Your checklist should be easy to follow but comprehensive enough to catch any potential issues before they cause larger problems.

3. Train Your Team for Consistency

Even the best QA processes will fail if your team isn’t adequately trained. Everyone involved in the quality assurance process must understand the standards and know how to apply them. Consistent training ensures that QA checks are carried out the same way, every time.

Here are some tips for effective QA training:

• Onboard new team members thoroughly by introducing them to your QA standards, processes, and tools.
• Use real-world scenarios in training to make the learning process practical.
• Schedule regular refresher sessions to ensure that everyone stays up to date with any changes in processes or standards.

4. Automate Where Possible

Automation is a powerful tool for streamlining QA checks. Whether it’s automating repetitive tests in software development or using sensors in manufacturing to monitor quality, leveraging technology can significantly improve efficiency and reduce human error.

For instance, automated testing tools like Selenium or TestComplete can run tests on software applications quickly and repeatedly, ensuring that bugs are identified early. Similarly, in a manufacturing environment, automated inspection systems can continuously monitor products for defects without slowing down production.

5. Continuous Improvement and Feedback Loops

A well-run QA system isn’t static. It should evolve and improve over time based on feedback from both internal stakeholders and customers. Implementing a continuous feedback loop allows you to collect data on how well your QA checks are working and make adjustments accordingly.

For example:

• Customer feedback: Did customers report any issues that your QA checks missed? If so, your QA process needs to be updated.
• Employee feedback: Are team members finding the QA checks difficult to follow? If so, the process might need to be simplified or clarified.

Collecting and acting on feedback ensures that your QA process remains effective, even as your business grows or changes.

6. Implement Risk-Based Approaches

Not all quality issues have the same impact. A risk-based approach helps prioritize resources where they matter most.

For example, in medical device manufacturing:

• Critical safety features receive the most rigorous testing.
• Non-critical cosmetic aspects receive less intensive scrutiny.
• Automated monitoring focuses on high-risk process parameters.

This approach maximizes quality assurance effectiveness while optimizing resource allocation.

7. Establish Effective Measurement Systems

You can’t improve what you don’t measure. Effective quality assurance requires clear metrics and measurement systems.

Key quality metrics might include:

• Defect rates at various production stages
• Customer complaint frequency and categories
• First-pass yield percentages
• Mean time between failures

Create dashboards that make these metrics visible to all stakeholders and track trends over time to identify improvement opportunities.

8. Conduct Regular Audits

Regular quality audits help verify that processes are being followed and identify areas for improvement.

Effective audit practices include:

• Developing a consistent audit schedule
• Using standardized audit checklists
• Training qualified internal auditors
• Documenting findings clearly
• Following up on corrective actions

Audits provide objective evidence of compliance and drive continuous improvement.

9. Foster Supplier Quality Management

In many industries, product quality depends heavily on component or material quality from suppliers.

Best practices include:

• Establishing clear quality requirements in supplier agreements
• Conducting supplier audits and qualification processes
• Implementing incoming inspection procedures
• Creating supplier scorecards to track performance

This approach extends your quality assurance beyond organizational boundaries.

10. Build a Strong Quality Culture

Quality assurance is most effective when it’s embedded in your organizational culture, not treated as an afterthought.

Ways to build a quality-focused culture include:

• Leadership consistently emphasizing quality in communications
• Recognizing and rewarding quality contributions
• Encouraging team members to report quality issues without fear
• Celebrating quality milestones and improvements

Organizations with strong quality cultures see fewer defects, higher customer satisfaction, and reduced costs.

A Real-World Example of Quality Assurance

To see the importance of quality assurance in action, let’s take a look at Toyota. In the 1950s, Toyota introduced the concept of "Total Quality Control," which focused on empowering employees to take responsibility for quality at every step. As a result, Toyota has become known for producing high-quality vehicles, and the company consistently ranks at the top in terms of reliability.

Their commitment to quality assurance has paid off significantly. A 2019 study found that Toyota had the fewest car recalls of any major automaker, with an average of just 0.22 recalls per 1,000 vehicles. Compare that to the industry average of 0.49 recalls per 1,000 vehicles, and you can see how effective quality assurance can translate directly into business success.

Bottom Line?

Quality assurance is essential for maintaining high standards and delivering excellent products or services. By implementing the best practices discussed—like defining clear standards, creating efficient checklists, training your team, and using automation—you can streamline your QA process and set your business up for success.

QA is not just about preventing problems; it’s about creating a culture of continuous improvement. With the right QA processes in place, your business can increase efficiency, boost customer satisfaction, and even improve profitability. So, start refining your QA today and watch the quality of your products soar.