Quality is the conformity of a company’s service or product to customer expectations and timely delivery. Quality management system is the process that companies implement to continuously improve product or service quality and meet customer expectations. In this blog post, we will discuss the four basic stages of the quality management system in detail. What is Quality Control System? As a company, you need to have a strong quality management system if you want to provide products and services that are consistent and meet expectations. A quality management system ensures that your products and services meet the set standards, that delivery times are consistent, and that your company focuses on the target at every business stage. What are the Stages of a Quality Management System? There are four basic criteria for an effective and robust quality control system. These criteria are quality planning, quality control, quality assurance and quality improvement. 1. Quality Control Planning Planning is the first step in a quality management process. In this step, you need to identify your objectives and what your core value is. It is important to determine what the quality standards are, plan what will be done to meet these standards, and determine what tools will be used to check whether the quality standards are met. You can use the following questions to determine the quality control planning process: What are customer expectations and needs? What are our quality objectives? What are the applicable industry standards? What is the planning for processes and procedures? What are the potential quality issues? What resources (staff, budget, equipment, etc.) will we need? 2. Quality Control Once you have a plan, the quality control process begins. Quality control involves physical inspection and testing to verify that the goals you set during planning are realistic and feasible. During the quality control process, your teams confirm that all standards are met and identify any issues early on that need to be corrected. The earlier you recognize problems, the better quality products you will produce. There are some important steps to follow in quality control. You should conduct inspections to make sure that products and services meet standards. You should test to see if a product or system is working as it should. You should collect data on the product or process. Use statistical tools to measure whether the product, service or process meets standards. Identify and correct defects. Give feedback for the production or development process. 3. Quality Assurance Quality assurance is a proactive approach that focuses on products and services from production to delivery. Its goal is to prevent errors through rigorous scrutiny and assurance of the right processes. With quality assurance, you inspect your products and services at source and ensure that defects are detected before they reach the customer. During the quality assurance phase, you can conduct process audits, organize trainings and encourage continuous improvement activities. These practices help you manage the process more successfully. 4. Quality Improvement Quality improvement is the last and most important step of a quality management system to ensure its sustainability. Quality improvement focuses on finding areas for improvement by reviewing the current situation. If there are points that need improvement, changes should be implemented and the results should be continuously monitored. The quality improvement step is a continuous improvement effort to make products and processes better. Unless you make improvements when needed, you will not see the benefits you expect from a quality management system. The desire for continuous improvement is an important factor in making a company successful. Therefore, you should review all your processes, products and services and restart the quality control process. You can use techniques such as root cause analysis, comparative analysis and feedback to carry out quality improvement processes efficiently. 4 Strategies to Improve Quality Management You can utilize the following strategies to improve your quality control process from its current state: Continuous Improvement: You can implement small changes to make products, services and processes work more efficiently and effectively. Training & Development: You can provide employees with the knowledge and skills they need to work more efficiently and improve their performance. New Technologies: You can use new technologies to improve quality and make things work more effectively. Feedback: By collecting feedback, you can identify opportunities for improvement. 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