Check quality throughout delivery

What you will understand

• Distinguish quality planning, quality control and quality assurance.
• Explain the different purposes of product and quality registers.
• Choose a controlled response to a failed quality check.

The idea

A completed test is useful evidence, but only if the right thing was tested in a suitable way and the result can be traced to an agreed requirement. Quality management joins planning, product checks and confidence in the quality system. It should help delivery throughout the project rather than become a final inspection that discovers preventable misunderstandings.

Quality planning establishes what quality means for the products and how it will be achieved and checked. It includes understanding requirements, describing products, agreeing specifications and tolerances, selecting suitable methods and assigning responsibilities. The quality management approach explains the standards and arrangements used across the project. The individual product description provides the relevant reference for creating and assessing a particular product.

Quality control examines products and results against their specifications. Depending on the product, the method could be a test, inspection, review, demonstration or another suitable assessment. It includes dealing with the outcome and obtaining the agreed approval. A requirement may need several different checks; repeating an easy test cannot substitute for a necessary safety or usability assessment that has not been performed.

Quality assurance provides confidence in the organisation’s quality arrangements and whether appropriate standards and procedures are being applied. It is generally independent of the project management team. Project assurance, in contrast, gives the board confidence about project conduct for business, user and supplier interests. An assurance activity may use quality-control evidence, but neither a test record nor a tidy register automatically establishes that the whole quality system is effective.

The product register records the products to be delivered and their relevant status, including information supporting tracking, inspection and acceptance. The quality register records planned and completed quality activities and their outcomes. One product can have multiple quality activities. Keep the records connected: the product register can show that an item awaits acceptance while the quality register shows which checks passed, which failed and what follow-up is required.

A failed check prompts assessment, not automatic acceptance or automatic abandonment. Determine whether correction is possible within authorised arrangements, whether an off-specification needs formal management, or whether a proposed change to an approved baseline requires a decision. Recheck corrected work as appropriate and retain the history. Never rewrite the original result to hide failure. Record approval and acceptance only when the relevant evidence and authorised decision exist; the act of updating a register does not itself create that decision.

Different views of quality

Points to remember

• Quality control concerns products; quality assurance concerns confidence in quality arrangements.
• One product may have several quality-register entries.
• Recording acceptance requires an appropriate decision, not administrative convenience.

Your takeaway

Plan quality, perform suitable checks and keep traceable outcomes. Product and quality registers provide complementary views, and failed checks must lead to controlled assessment and resolution rather than hidden changes to the evidence.