QA vs QC - what's the difference?

Many people think QA and QC are just interchangeable terms. Not so.
Quality Control - QC
This is the most basic level of quality. It started with activities whose purpose is to control the
quality of products or services by finding problems and defects.

At its simplest, QC is inspecting, testing or checking something (service or product) to make sure
it's OK. The intent is to identify anything that isn't OK, and either fix it or eliminate it, to make
sure it conforms to the specifications, and has/does/functions as required. QC is typically done
at the end of the line, before it 'goes out the door'. If the something isn't OK, this is called
'nonconformity' or a nonconforming service/product.

In the ISO 9000 standard, clause 3.2.10 defines Quality Control as:
A part of quality management focused on fulfilling quality requirements

Clause 3.2.11 defines Quality Assurance as:
A part of quality management focused on providing confidence that quality requirements will
be fulfilled

These definitions lay a good foundation
Q: Consider the following possible outcomes. Which would be rejected as nonconforming?
1. The delivered report contains information on all sections above; it is professionally written
and presented.
2. The report is delivered to the client, but somehow the last page was left out (final couple of
paragraphs from the recommendations section).
3. The delivered report has information on all the required sections. But it is badly written and
poorly presented, below the standard that the consulting firm sets for its reports to clients.

A: Only report 1 is OK. The reports for 2 and 3 aren't. Report 2 is missing parts of a required
section. While Report 3 has all the agreed content wanted, its presentation doesn't meet the
internal standards set and expected by the consulting company.

Quality Control does not ensure quality, it only finds instances where quality is
missing. Obviously it's better than nothing, but it has its limitations. The most important of
these is that you only find out that things aren't OK at the end of the
process.
Quality Assurance (QA)
Quality Assurance developed from the realisation that quality could
be improved by looking 'further up the line'. It is aimed at
preventing nonconformities/defects.

QA still has QC at its core to control the quality of service/product,
but it goes beyond mere testing or inspection to also consider related
activities or processes (such as training, document control
and audits) that may be resulting in defects further down the line.

Think of QC as something like doing periodic checks to see that a horse is still in its stable,
whereas QA would aim to make sure that the stable doors and gate locks work properly and that
all the stablehands are trained and aware of the need to close and bolt doors properly.

Quality Management
As the quality movement matured and improved, it developed into Quality Management. Now
the emphasis has widened to include developments in systems thinking and management
systems. Quality management is a much broader field. While it includes quality planning, as
well as quality control and quality assurance, it also includes quality improvement and extends
beyond just QA and QC to a systems approach and looking at the quality management system as
a whole.

The systems approach considers the various elements of the entire system. In the 9001 model,
this comprises five main components of:
the system as a whole and its processes
management responsibility
management of resources
management of the service or product 'realisation' processes (doing/making stuff), and

QC, QA & Management
management of measurement, analysis and improvement.