QM:Quality Assurance

Quality assurance or Quality control is a collective term for different approaches and measures to ensure defined quality requirements.

DIN-Norm

According to DIN EN ISO 9000:2015 3.3.6, quality assurance is the part of quality management that aims to create confidence that quality requirements are met.

Quality assurance existed before the term itself came up. Quality assurance became known in German-speaking countries, as companies began to have their quality management system (QMS) certified according to the ISO 9001 standard series established in 1987.

Quality assurance process: PDCA

Application

The PDCA cycle describes the phases in the continuous improvement process (CIP). CIP is the basis of all quality management systems. As a result, the company is constantly improving processes and produres with the goal of improving the efficiency as well as the customer and employee satisfaction of the company.

In industrial enterprises and in the service sector, it is one of the standard procedures. The KVP and PDCA cycles are fundamental components of the DIN EN ISO 9000, ISO 14000, ISO/IEC 20000 and ISO/IEC 27001 "Information Ttchnology - Security techniques - Information security management systems requirements specification" and in the BSI standard 100-1: Information security management systems (ISMS).

After each PDCA cycle, the measures are to be standardized by a SDCA cycle. After each introduction of a defined standard (Standardize), this standard is practiced (Do), the procedure checked for correctness and functionality (Check) and changed if necessary (Action). This action is then usually the planning of another PDCA cycle.

Multimedia

A simple and easy to understand explanation of PDCA.