What is Quality Assurance?
Quality assurance refers to the actions taken by a company or business organization to ensure that there are no problems with quality standards of goods or services produced and provided in the business.In a more strict sense, quality assurance refers to all the aggregated systematic activities carried out in a production system so that the quality standards for a service or a product are fulfilled.
It involves systematic and strict measurements, monitoring of processes, comparison with ideal standards and consistent feedback to ensure prevention of errors in the production processes. Sometimes, quality assurance is referred to as quality control.
Where Do Quality Assurance Personnel Work?
Businesses in some industries cannot work effectively without quality assurance personnel because their businesses are dependent on the quality of the output.Today, almost any business utilizes quality assurance personnel because of the need to meet ISO standards on quality, as well as the need to conquer markets with quality. Some of the critical industries that need quality assurance include the following:
- Pharmaceutical companies
- Food and beverage companies
- Information technology firms
- Structural engineering companies
- Chemical manufacture firms
- Product manufacture industries or factories
- Software production firms
- Data analysis and processing companies
It is important to note that the places where someone can establish their quality assurance career are innumerable.
Almost any kind of business or company has a quality control and assurance department. Therefore, the places you can work in are just as many as the number of industries available.
Duties of a Quality Assurance Officer
The roles of quality assurance specialists, engineers, managers or officers might not be the same. They are dependent on the industry or area of business a person works in.However, the following are the general roles that are likely to be found cutting across most companies.
- Enhancing and maintaining the quality of products manufactured by a company
- Implementing quality standards set by the law and the company
- Eliminating or reducing the errors per unit of products manufactured by the company
- Quality error identification and correction
- Educating other employees in the line of production about quality standards
- Helping engineers with research and development of production systems
- Supervising production procedures in a company to ensure each stage maintains the quality standards
- Reporting on daily flaws in production or service dispensation
For instance, internet service providers do not produce any products, but they have to ensure that there is a standard of quality maintained in their services.
The Academic Qualifications of Quality Assurance Specialists
The educational and training requirements in this job are not necessarily the same across all industries. There is a huge variation in the kind of services and products offered by the different companies. Therefore, the requirements in quality control are different.They will require some kind of specific qualifications. In a more general sense, the qualifications are grouped as those of testers, inspectors, weighers, sorters and samplers.
- A degree in applied sciences, especially those specific to the field of interest
- Computer education and skills in technical handling of data
- Training and certification in relevant quality assurance in relevant fields
- Some companies require an associate’s degree in quality control standards
- Quality assurance certification from some professional organizations (such as the American Society for Quality) may also be a requirement
Whereas the list for these educational qualifications is not complete due to the unique needs of each organization hiring quality assurance officers, other skills and abilities are desirable in quality assurance officers, technicians and managers.
- Other desirable skills of quality assurance personnel
- You must have an eye for detail
- Clear communication skills
- Ability to remain consistent and follow rules to the latter
- You must be a careful planner
- Team leading and cooperation abilities
Salary Estimates of Quality Assurance Personnel
It is not easy to estimate the salary of a quality assurance officer because of the various variants in the job. For instance, some companies pay them on an hourly basis, while others have fixed rates. In a general sense, the scales are as below:- The upper 90% earners are paid between $52,370 and $55,044 per year
- The 75th percentile earners range from $40,990 to $45,613 annually
- The median group earns between $33,190 and $35,444 per year
- The 25th percentile earn between $26,220 and $27,311 per year, and
- The lowest 10% earners range from $21,210 and $21,603 per year