What Different between Quality Assurance & Quality Control?

Quality Assurance and Control?

• Can you just explain briefly what each are. And if a company said that they would give a years guarentee on the product, is that quality control or assurance. If a company used jigs in their production line, is that quality control or assurance? thanks.

• Answer:

  I think the two concepts are used interchangeably, but basically quality control implies some sort of active system to check quality of a product before it is shipped, whereas quality assurance might be associated more with a warranty or guarantee after it is shipped. However, as I have said, I have seen quality assurance also used in the pre-shipped context to mean that there is a system in place to catch defective products before being shipped.