14.1 What is Quality Assurance?

Quality Assurance (QA) is the activity consisting of all those planned or systemic actions necessary to provide adequate requirements for ensuring quality. QA basically provides the evidence needed to establish confidence among all concerned, that quality-related activities are being performed effectively. Quality assurance is analogous to the concept of the financial audit which provides assurance of financial integrity through an independent audit. In today's world, as independent certified public accountants have become an influential force in the field of finance, quality assurance experts are finding an increasingly important role in manufacturing and service sectors.

All manufacturing houses, including PCB manufacturers, have QA departments, which are concerned with all quality-related activities such as quality planning, quality control, quality improvement, quality audit and reliability issues.

In quality assurance, the assurance comes from evidence or a set of facts. For simple products, the evidence is usually some form of inspections or a set of facts and test data. However, for complex products, the evidence includes not only inspection and test data, but also review of plans and audits of the execution of plans. Thus, a family of assurance techniques is available to cover varied needs of products.

Quality, which is defined as fitness for purpose, will be achieved only if integrated into the design and manufacturing process. Therefore, the amount of testing involved in the manufacture of the printed circuits should be carefully planned so that all the faults or defects are picked up, rectified and brought within...