Quality Assurance – An Ethical Obligation

Quality is the ability of your product to be able to satisfy your users, whereas Quality Assurance is the process that demonstrates your product is able to satisfy your users.

When good Quality Assurance (QA) is implemented there should be improvement in usability and performance and lessening rates of defects. It is a way of preventing mistakes or defects in manufactured products and avoiding problems when delivering solutions or services to customers; which ISO 9001:2015 defines as “part of quality management focused on providing confidence that quality requirements will be fulfilled”. This defect prevention in quality assurance differs subtly from defect detection and rejection in quality control, and has been referred to as a shift left as it focuses on quality earlier in the process.

Quality assurance comprises administrative and procedural activities implemented in a quality system so that requirements and goals for a product, service or activity will be fulfilled. It is the systematic measurement, comparison with a standard, monitoring of processes and an associated feedback loop that confers error prevention. This can be contrasted with quality control, which is focused on process output. For every company in Pakistan where customer confidence is almost non-existent domestically and internationally, we must adhere to quality assurance not for the purpose of raking in the Rupees but as an ethical duty and providing the customers with quality as committed.

Whether you are a small business or a global corporation, ISO certification sends a clear message of quality adherence wherever you may do business. Certification increases confidence in your company, enhancing your competitiveness in all of the world’s local marketplaces. Conformity to International Standards helps reassure consumers that products are safe, efficient and good for the environment.

Unfortunately, in Pakistan where a roadside vendor and big corporation both use malpractice to overemphasize what a product or a service may be that they provide. With the Right quality assurance techniques, a business can optimally increase their quality which is real in terms of what is claimed.

International Standards bring technological, economic and societal benefits. They help to harmonize technical specifications of products and services making industry more efficient and breaking down barriers to international trade especially in the case of Pakistan where we face a deficit Balance of Trade.

Also for every Business that adapts ISO certification it benefits them on the micro level such as cost savings, increased market share, environmental benefits and finally enhanced customer satisfaction.

On the other hand, all countries benefit from it as ISO standards are international and adopted by many governments. By integrating ISO standards into national regulation, governments help to ensure that requirements for imports and exports are the same the world over, therefore facilitating the movement of goods, services and technologies from country to country.

In my opinion ISO standards are an ethical obligation for every business entity as well as for an individual running a business mainly due to its benefits covering all stakeholders and their interests such as consumers, businesses, and government as a whole.