Quality Assurance and Quality Control - Which clauses of ISO 9001 deal with each?

P

Parsons

First of all, Hi to everyone. I came across this forum accidentally, and from that moment I have learned quite a lot from the countless threads and discussions.

I decided to open today an account to ask a question which I believe you may be able to help me with.

As stated in the title it has to do with Quality Assurance and Quality Control.

The definition from ISO 9000:2015 for Quality Assurance is as follows:
"part of quality management focused on providing confidence that quality requirements will be fulfilled."
On the other side, the definition for Quality Control is:
"part of quality management focused on fulfilling quality requirements"

My question is this: which part or clauses of ISO 9001 deal with quality assurance and which ones with quality control? (if such distinction can be made)
 
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Big Jim

Admin
All of it.

Prior to ISO 9001 there was MIL I. It dealt with a heavy duty inspection program. Basically it dealt with 8.2.4 of ISO 9001:2008 and 8.6 of ISO 9001:2015. The goal was to be sure not to ship any xxxx (substitute your own four letter word for nonconforming product).

ISO 9001 added continual improvement to the equation, and in so doing involved most everything else in the organization.

Quality cannot be inspected into a product. It is the results of many decisions along the way. Those decisions involve the entire ISO 9001 standard and the attention of the entire organization.
 
O

ousgg

Regardless of what the Definitions section may contain, there are NO good definitions of Quality Assurance and Quality Control, or the difference between the two.

I'm increasingly inclined to take the word 'Quality' out of play altogether, because there isn't really a good definition for that either. No, really, there isn't. Our ISO 9001 and ISO 140001 integrated system goes under the title of 'Business Process Management (System)'.
 

Tagin

Trusted Information Resource
....

The definition from ISO 9000:2015 for Quality Assurance is as follows:
"part of quality management focused on providing confidence that quality requirements will be fulfilled."
On the other side, the definition for Quality Control is:
"part of quality management focused on fulfilling quality requirements"

My question is this: which part or clauses of ISO 9001 deal with quality assurance and which ones with quality control? (if such distinction can be made)

To me, QA is planning for quality ("providing confidence") and QC is monitoring for quality ("fulfilling quality").

So, all the clauses and sub-clauses related to planning and risk management are QA, and inspection, monitoring & measuring, corrective actions, etc. are QC.

In crude generalizations, I'd say clauses 4-7 involve QA, 8 involves both QA & QC, 9-10 involve QC (except 10.3).

Another perspective could be to say that the entire standard is QA (i.e., the whole idea of 9001 is as a framework to provide confidence for quality), and part of that QA is to establish QC at certain points.
 
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