What distinguishes quality control from quality assurance?

Quality control and quality assurance are critical components of quality management, but they serve different purposes and approaches within a project.

The choice highlighting that quality control focuses on products while quality assurance emphasizes processes captures the core distinction accurately. Quality control is concerned with the actual products or services being delivered, and it involves measuring and testing these outputs to ensure they meet specific quality standards. This process happens after the production phase and is predominantly product-oriented, focusing on identifying defects in finished goods.

On the other hand, quality assurance involves the overall processes that lead to the creation of products. Its purpose is to ensure that the systems, methodologies, and practices are set up to prevent defects before they occur. This proactive approach is aimed at improving and stabilizing production processes to avoid issues in the final output.

This distinction between focusing on the end product versus the methods used to create that product is what sets apart quality control from quality assurance, making this choice the most accurate representation of their differences.