Acceptable Quality Assurance Guidelines
An acceptable Quality Assurance and Quality Control Program is a management system to assure yourself, your employees and your customer that you are doing what you say you are going to do. It focuses on what is important in your business and should assist in improving safety, profitability and reliability. It will generally contain some or all of the following values:
- Management’s Role and Responsibility is well defined and an active part of the program.
- The company’s organizational structure is defined, as well as how quality assurance fits in.
- The actual Quality Assurance (QA) Program (ISO 9000, NQA-1, ANSI/ASMI, self-certification)
- How a bid package and/or awarded contract is reviewed. How are the quality related issues in contracts addressed by the company’s QA policies and procedures?
- Design Control Policies and Procedures are
- Documentation and Data Control Management are clear, in place and current.
- Purchasing Procedures incorporate guidelines for quality.
- Procedures are in place if the company becomes responsible for control of Customer Supplied Products. How do they maintain, store, manage, and return equipment back to customer. If modifications are made to customer supplied products, is there a tracking and documentation process.
- Product Identification and Traceability for both incoming raw materials, components and equipment and outgoing products. Is there a process to notify customers if a product fails, or components within a product are recalled?
- Process Controls are documented and in place.
- Inspection and Testing is performed according to industry recognized guidelines.
- Control of any internal inspection, measuring and test equipment is documented and performed according to manufacturing and/or industry standards.
- Inspection and Test Status are documented and performed according to industry standards, or customers requirements. Proper notification to customer is provided when required.
- Control of Non-Conforming Product includes appropriate quarantine, analysis and correctional steps are in place. Checks assure no non-conforming product will be shipped to any customers.
- Corrective Action and Preventative Action Management and Documentation are documented and performed in a timely and proactive manner.
- Handling, Storage, Packaging, Preservation and Delivery Procedures are clearly defined and consistently applied.
- Control of Quality Records are documented and current. Legal and industry standard practices are applied to record retention.
- Internal Quality Audits are routinely performed and documented. Any findings are systematically identified, analyzed and corrected. Policies and procedures are updated in a timely fashion to accommodate changes and improvements to the QA program.
- Employees are properly trained and equipped to perform their assigned work. The Company has an established orientation program for new hires.