Quality Control
Quality Control
As per https://www.investopedia.com/terms/q/quality-control.asp
Quality control (QC) is a process through which a business seeks to ensure that product quality is maintained or improved. Quality control requires the company to create an environment where management and employees strive for perfection. This is done by training personnel, creating benchmarks for product quality, and testing products to check for statistically significant variations.
A significant aspect of quality control is the establishment of well-defined controls. These controls help standardize both production and reactions to quality issues. Limiting room for error by specifying which production activities are to be completed by which personnel reduces the chance that employees will be involved in tasks for which they do not have adequate training.
Quality control (QC) is a process through which a business seeks to ensure that product quality is maintained or improved.
Quality control involves testing units and determining if they are within the specifications for the final product.
The quality control used in a business is highly dependent on the product or industry, and several techniques exist for measuring quality.
The food industry uses quality control methods to ensure customers do not get sick from their products.
Quality control creates safe measures that can be implemented to make sure deficient or damaged products do not end up with customers.
Quality control ensures that defective goods do not go out to the public. Companies that have quality control methods in place often have employees who pay close attention to their work.
In food and drug manufacturing, quality control prevents products that make customers sick, and in manufacturing, quality control can ensure that accidents don't happen when people use a product.
As per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_control,
Quality control (QC) is a process by which entities review the quality of all factors involved in production. ISO 9000 defines quality control as "a part of quality management focused on fulfilling quality requirements".
This approach places emphasis on three aspects (enshrined in standards such as ISO 9001):
Elements such as controls, job management, defined and well managed processes,performance and integrity criteria, and identification of records
Competence, such as knowledge, skills, experience, and qualifications
Soft elements, such as personnel, integrity, confidence, organizational culture, motivation, team spirit, and quality relationships.
Inspection is a major component of quality control, where physical product is examined visually (or the end results of a service are analyzed). Product inspectors will be provided with lists and descriptions of unacceptable product defects such as cracks or surface blemishes for example
As per, https://www.juran.com/blog/what-is-quality-control/
Today, the term “quality control” often means quality control and compliance. The goal is to comply with critical-to-quality requirements and international standards or regulatory authorities such as ISO 9000. In Japan, the term “quality control” retains a broader meaning. Their “total quality control” is equivalent to the term “business excellence.” In 1997, the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) adopted the term Total Quality Management (TQM) to replace Total Quality Control (TQC) to more closely align themselves with the more common terminology used in the rest of the world.
Quality control is the third universal process in the Juran Trilogy. The term “control of quality” first emerged in the early part of the twentieth century. At that time, the concept was beginning to expand from the then-prevailing after-the-fact inspection, or “detection”, to what we now call “prevention”.
When designing a product we create features to satisfy the customer needs. Quality control is the method carried out every day to assure we are making and delivering the product or service to the right targets. We maintain control of product features, or key product characteristics, required to meet customer needs. This consists of a system of product and process controls, which can provide stability to the operating process. A key product characteristic that controls anticipated variation could significantly affect a product’s safety, compliance to government regulations, performance, or fit.
Quality control takes place by use of a simple feedback loop, as follows:
A sensor is “plugged in” to evaluate the actual quality of the control subject—the product or process feature in question. The performance of a process may be determined directly by evaluation of the process feature, or indirectly by evaluation of the product feature—the product “tells” on the process.
The sensor reports the performance to an umpire. The umpire may be a computer or a person.
The umpire also receives information on the quality goal or standard.
The umpire compares actual performance to standard. If the difference is too great, the umpire energizes an actuator.
The actuator stimulates the process (whether human or technological) to change the performance so as to bring quality into line with the quality goal.
The process responds by restoring conformance.
Quality control maintains whatever was planned or designed. The QC methods enable an organization to reduce risk, which could lead to a failure, an injury or even death.
A major part of the quality assurance is the Quality Control defined by ISO as "the operational techniques and activities that are used to satisfy quality requirements. " An important part of the quality control is the Quality Assessment: the system of activities to verify if the quality control activities are effective, in other words: an evaluation of the products themselves.
Quality control is primarily aimed at the prevention of errors. Yet, despite all efforts, it remains inevitable that errors are be made. Therefore, the control system should have checks to detect them. When errors or mistakes are suspected or discovered it is essential that the "Five Ws" are trailed:
- what error was made?
- where was it made?
- when was it made?
- who made it?
- why was it made?
Only when all these questions are answered, proper action can be taken to correct the error and prevent the same mistake being repeated.
The techniques and activities involved in Quality Control can be divided into four levels of operation:
1. First-line control: Instrument performance check.
2. Second-line control: Check of calibration or standardization.
3. Third-line control: Batch control (control sample, identity check).
4. Fourth-line control: Overall check (external checks: reference samples, interlaboratory exchange programmes).
Because the first two control levels both apply to the correct functioning of the instruments they are often taken together and then only three levels are distinguished. This designation is used throughout the present Guidelines:
1. First-line control: Instrument check / calibration.
2. Second-line control: Batch control
3. Third-line control: External check
It will be clear that producing quality in the laboratory is a major enterprise requiring a continuous human effort and input of money. The rule-of-fist is that 10-20% of the total costs of analysis should be spent on quality control. Therefore, for quality work at least four conditions should be fulfilled:
- means are available (adequate personnel and facilities)
- efficient use of time and means (costs aspect)
- expertise is available (answering questions; aftercare)
- upholding and improving level of output (continuity)
In quality work, management aspects and technical aspects are inherently cobbled together and for a clear insight and proper functioning of the laboratory these aspects have to be broken down into their components. This is done in the ensuing chapters of this manual.
For more information please visit: https://www.fao.org/3/W7295E/w7295e03.htm
As per, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_quality_control
Software quality control is the set of procedures used by organizations[1] to ensure that a software product will meet its quality goals at the best value to the customer, and to continually improve the organization’s ability to produce software products in the future.
Software quality control refers to specified functional requirements as well as non-functional requirements such as supportability, performance and usability. It also refers to the ability for software to perform well in unforeseeable scenarios and to keep a relatively low defect rate.
These specified procedures and outlined requirements lead to the idea of Verification and Validation and software testing.
It is distinct from software quality assurance which encompasses processes and standards for ongoing maintenance of high quality of products, e.g. software deliverables, documentation and processes - avoiding defects. Whereas software quality control is a validation of artifacts compliance against established criteria - finding defects.
Software quality control is a function that checks whether a software component, or supporting artifact meets requirements, or is "fit for use". Software Quality Control is commonly referred to as Testing.
QC Activities:
Check that assumptions and criteria for the selection of data and the different factors related to data are documented.
Check for transcription errors in data input and reference.
Check the integrity of database files.
Check for consistency in data.
Check that the movement of inventory data among processing steps is correct.
Check for uncertainties in data, database files etc.
Undertake review of internal documentation.
Check methodological and data changes resulting in recalculations.
Undertake completeness checks.
Compare Results to previous Results.
Software QC / Testing Methods:
How does software testing work?
As per, https://www.ibm.com/topics/software-testing
Software testing is the process of evaluating and verifying that a software product or application does what it is supposed to do. The benefits of testing include preventing bugs, reducing development costs and improving performance.
Types of software testing
There are many different types of software tests, each with specific objectives and strategies:
Acceptance testing: Verifying whether the whole system works as intended.
Integration testing: Ensuring that software components or functions operate together.
Unit testing: Validating that each software unit performs as expected. A unit is the smallest testable component of an application.
Functional testing: Checking functions by emulating business scenarios, based on functional requirements. Black-box testing is a common way to verify functions.
Performance testing: Testing how the software performs under different workloads. Load testing, for example, is used to evaluate performance under real-life load conditions.
Regression testing: Checking whether new features break or degrade functionality. Sanity testing can be used to verify menus, functions and commands at the surface level, when there is no time for a full regression test.
Stress testing: Testing how much strain the system can take before it fails. Considered to be a type of non-functional testing.
Usability testing: Validating how well a customer can use a system or web application to complete a task.
In each case, validating base requirements is a critical assessment. Just as important, exploratory testing helps a tester or testing team uncover hard-to-predict scenarios and situations that can lead to software errors.
Even a simple application can be subject to a large number and variety of tests. A test management plan helps to prioritize which types of testing provide the most value – given available time and resources. Testing effectiveness is optimized by running the fewest number of tests to find the largest number of defects.
History of software testing
Software testing arrived alongside the development of software, which had its beginnings just after the second world war. Computer scientist Tom Kilburn is credited with writing the first piece of software, which debuted on June 21, 1948, at the University of Manchester in England. It performed mathematical calculations using machine code instructions.
Debugging was the main testing method at the time and remained so for the next two decades. By the 1980s, development teams looked beyond isolating and fixing software bugs to testing applications in real-world settings. It set the stage for a broader view of testing, which encompassed a quality assurance process that was part of the software development life cycle.
“In the 1990s, there was a transition from testing to a more comprehensive process called quality assurance, which covers the entire software development cycle and affects the processes of planning, design, creation and execution of test cases, support for existing test cases and test environments,” says Alexander Yaroshko in his post on the uTest developer site.
“Testing had reached a qualitatively new level, which led to the further development of methodologies, the emergence of powerful tools for managing the testing process and test automation tools.” 1
Continuous testing
Software testing has traditionally been separated from the rest of development. It is often conducted later in the software development life cycle after the product build or execution stage. A tester may only have a small window to test the code – sometimes just before the application goes to market. If defects are found, there may be little time for recoding or retesting. It is not uncommon to release software on time, but with bugs and fixes needed. Or a testing team may fix errors but miss a release date.
Doing test activities earlier in the cycle helps keep the testing effort at the forefront rather than as an afterthought to development. Earlier software tests also mean that defects are less expensive to resolve.
Many development teams now use a methodology known as continuous testing. It is part of a DevOps approach – where development and operations collaborate over the entire product life cycle. The aim is to accelerate software delivery while balancing cost, quality and risk. With this testing technique, teams don’t need to wait for the software to be built before testing starts. They can run tests much earlier in the cycle to discover defects sooner, when they are easier to fix.
Why software testing is important
Few can argue against the need for quality control when developing software. Late delivery or software defects can damage a brand’s reputation — leading to frustrated and lost customers. In extreme cases, a bug or defect can degrade interconnected systems or cause serious malfunctions.
Consider Nissan having to recall over 1 million cars due to a software defect in the airbag sensor detectors. Or a software bug that caused the failure of a USD 1.2 billion military satellite launch. 2 The numbers speak for themselves. Software failures in the US cost the economy USD 1.1 trillion in assets in 2016. What’s more, they impacted 4.4 billion customers. 3
Though testing itself costs money, companies can save millions per year in development and support if they have a good testing technique and QA processes in place. Early software testing uncovers problems before a product goes to market. The sooner development teams receive test feedback, the sooner they can address issues such as:
Architectural flaws
Poor design decisions
Invalid or incorrect functionality
Security vulnerabilities
Scalability issues
When development leaves ample room for testing, it improves software reliability and high-quality applications are delivered with few errors. A system that meets or even exceeds customer expectations leads to potentially more sales and greater market share.
Software testing best practices
Software testing follows a common process. Tasks or steps include defining the test environment, developing test cases, writing scripts, analyzing test results and submitting defect reports.
Testing can be time-consuming. Manual testing or ad-hoc testing may be enough for small builds. However, for larger systems, tools are frequently used to automate tasks. Automated testing helps teams implement different scenarios, test differentiators (such as moving components into a cloud environment), and quickly get feedback on what works and what doesn't.
A good testing approach encompasses the application programming interface (API), user interface and system levels. As well, the more tests that are automated, and run early, the better. Some teams build in-house test automation tools. However, vendor solutions offer features that can streamline key test management tasks such as:
Continuous testing: Project teams test each build as it becomes available. This type of software testing relies on test automation that is integrated with the deployment process. It enables software to be validated in realistic test environments earlier in the process – improving design and reducing risks.
Configuration management: Organizations centrally maintain test assets and track what software builds to test. Teams gain access to assets such as code, requirements, design documents, models, test scripts and test results. Good systems include user authentication and audit trails to help teams meet compliance requirements with minimal administrative effort.
Service virtualization: Testing environments may not be available, especially early in code development. Service virtualization simulates the services and systems that are missing or not yet completed, enabling teams to reduce dependencies and test sooner. They can reuse, deploy and change a configuration to test different scenarios without having to modify the original environment.
Defect or bug tracking: Monitoring defects is important to both testing and development teams for measuring and improving quality. Automated tools allow teams to track defects, measure their scope and impact, and uncover related issues.
Metrics and reporting: Reporting and analytics enable team members to share status, goals and test results. Advanced tools integrate project metrics and present results in a dashboard. Teams quickly see the overall health of a project and can monitor relationships between test, development and other project elements.
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