The QA and QC line is well defined in international trade. The roles are well defined.

But the lines start to blur when one must deal with domestic clients.

Several times, I have received emails from clients that their QA will be visiting the factory.
Then while reconfirming the visit the mail used to read QC will be visiting the factory.
I used to be very confused and did not know what to tell the factory.
My office, in reply, often asked “Who is visiting, QA or QC”?
Now it was time for the client to get confused. Often leading to a thought that my old age is catching on, though rather soon.
Slowly, the realization dawned on me that for domestic clients QA and QC were the same sides of the coin.
And it prompted me to write the below article.
Let us start with the meaning of the two jobs.

Quality Assurance is process-oriented and focuses on defect prevention.

Quality Control is product-oriented and focuses on defect identification.

Quality assurance and quality control is a complex area of the apparel industry. First off, quality assurance is no quality control, but quality control is an aspect of quality assurance.

Quality assurance builds quality into each step of the manufacturing process including designing, production, and beyond.

Quality control is generally understood as assessing quality after products have already been manufactured and sorted into acceptable and unacceptable categories. 

Apparel garments, accessories, and other textile products are assessed for quality in the preproduction phase, during production, and with a final inspection after the product has been completed.

Quality Control in Apparel Quality Control is a process through which a business seeks to ensure that product quality is maintained or improved with either reduced or zero errors, though zero errors are next to impossible in a garment. Quality control requires the business to create an environment in which both 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 major 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 in garment manufacturing technology in the apparel industry quality control is practiced right from the initial stage of sourcing raw materials to the stage of the final finished garment.

Quality control in the garment industry is a very complex and lengthy task. There are several stages to control quality in garment manufacturing. They can be defined as:

• Preproduction quality control, 
• Quality control during production, 
• Final inspection, 
• Quality control to developing a sampling plan and 
• Post-production quality evaluation.

Quality Assurance on the other hand, in Apparel Quality Assurance, is defined as all those possible planned and systematic actions necessary to provide adequate confidence that a product will satisfy given requirements for quality. 

The quality assurance section is assigned to maintain consistency for uniform quality of the material in process and various stages of garment manufacturing. Quality Assurance (QA) is the systematic monitoring and evaluation of the various aspects of a product to maximize the probability that standards of quality are being attained by the production process. Quality Assurance cannot guarantee the production of quality products. The process flow chart of the Quality Assurance Department guarantees the production of quality products. 

Quality Assurance cannot guarantee the production of quality garments. Process flow chart of Quality Assurance Department Accessories check, 

• Fabric inspection, 
• Shade segregation, 
• Shrinkage test, 
• Size set check, 
• Master check, 
• Spreading quality assurance, 
• Cutting quality assurance, 
• Hard pattern check, 
• Pre-production meeting and 
• General instructions are the key parameters.

To sum it up one can safely state that the Quality Control (QC) Start point is a task that begins at the production stage and the Tool of QC is a corrective tool.

On the other hand, the Quality Assurance(QA) Start point task usually begins before production and the Tool is a Managerial effective tool from product development to dispatch. 

RELATED TOPICS:#Apparel,Sanjay Lal