Quality Assurance

checking the quality of the product before it hits the market

Quality assurance (QA) is the activity of providing evidence needed to establish confidence among all concerned, that quality-related activities are being performed effectively. All those planned or systematic actions necessary to provide adequate confidence that a product or service will satisfy given requirements for quality.
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All the planned and systematic activities implemented within the quality system, and demonstrated as needed, to provide adequate confidence that an entity will fulfil requirements for quality.

1. All actions taken to ensure that standards and procedures are adhered to and that delivered products or services meet performance requirements. (188 ) 2. The planned systematic activities necessary to ensure that a component, module, or system conforms to established technical requirements. 3. The policy, procedures, and systematic actions established in an enterprise for the purpose of providing and maintaining a specified degree of confidence in data integrity and accuracy throughout the lifecycle of the data, which includes input, update, manipulation, and output.

<testing> (QA) A planned and systematic pattern of all actions necessary to provide adequate confidence that the product optimally fulfils customers' expectations, i.e. that it is problem-free and well able to perform the task it was designed for.
The QA of a commercial product usually involves alpha testing, where an early version of the product is tested at the developer's site, and is then improved accordingly. Then, an almost complete version of the product is made available for beta testing by (selected) real users. Faults identified during beta testing should be fixed before the product is released for full scale manufacturing and distribution.
(2001-04-21)