Quality Assurance Services

Quality assurance services are services that establish, monitor, audit or improve the processes used to make sure specified quality requirements are met. The phrase is a procurement and service description rather than a separately defined technical term, and it rests on the international definition of quality assurance.

ISO 9000:2015 defines quality assurance as the part of quality management focused on providing confidence that quality requirements will be fulfilled (ISO TC 176 terms listing). When a Canadian buyer asks for quality assurance services, it is asking a supplier to provide that confidence for a project, a product or a service delivery process.

How ISO defines quality assurance

ISO describes quality assurance as a systematic process for ensuring that products, services and processes consistently meet defined quality requirements (ISO quality assurance guidance). The focus is on the way work is done, not only on what comes out at the end.

In service organizations, ISO states that quality assurance concentrates on the processes behind service delivery. That is why quality assurance work often involves setting up procedures, reviewing how work is carried out, auditing against requirements and recommending improvements.

Quality assurance compared with quality control

ISO separates quality assurance from quality control. Quality assurance reviews the delivery process, while quality control involves inspecting the actual products or services (ISO quality management). The two are related but they are not the same activity, and a solicitation may ask for one, the other or both.

Related terms you will see alongside quality assurance include:

• quality management and quality management system
• quality requirements
• inspection and testing
• auditing
• continuous improvement

Quality assurance services in Canadian tenders

Federal and public-sector buyers use the phrase for work that is a service, not the supply of a physical product. Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) procured "Remediation Plan Design and Support (Quality Assurance) Services" as part of the Faro Mine remediation program (PSPC news release on Faro Mine). In that case quality assurance was procured as part of environmental remediation support.

Quality assurance also appears in engineering and infrastructure procurement. CanadaBuys has listed "Engineering Quality Assurance services – Coatings – British Columbia" for the British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority (CanadaBuys tender listing).

CanadaBuys publishes tender notices from PSPC, other federal departments and agencies, Crown corporations, broader public-service organizations and NATO (CanadaBuys tender support). Quality assurance opportunities can therefore turn up across many buyers and many sectors, from environmental programs to utilities.

What it means for a supplier

The obligations attached to quality assurance services are set by the individual solicitation and the resulting statement of work or contract. There is no single checklist or clause that applies to every procurement using the phrase.

• Read the statement of work closely to see whether the buyer wants process oversight, inspection and testing, or both.
• Use ISO terminology such as quality requirements, auditing and quality management system when describing your approach, because it matches the accepted meaning of the term.
• Show how your method gives the buyer confidence that requirements will be met, not only that deliverables were checked at the end.
• Monitor CanadaBuys for notices that use the phrase, including those from Crown corporations and provincial utilities.