Which function is primarily concerned with preventing defects and ensuring the project will meet quality requirements?

Which function is primarily concerned with preventing defects and ensuring the project will meet quality requirements?

• A. Substantiation
• B. Design Commitment
• C. Quality Assurance
• D. Quality Control

Answer: (C)

Quality Assurance is the function that focuses on preventing defects by shaping the way work is done. It’s about the planned, systematic activities used to ensure quality requirements will be met—setting standards, developing procedures, training people, and conducting process audits to improve how design and construction are carried out. By embedding quality into the processes, QA aims to prevent problems before they occur, rather than just finding them after the fact. Quality Control, by comparison, is reactive—checking the finished work or outputs to identify and correct defects after they appear. Substantiation centers on providing justification for decisions, not the broad quality processes. Design Commitment relates to agreeing to design criteria, but it doesn’t by itself manage the ongoing prevention and process Controls that ensure quality.

Quality Assurance is the function that focuses on preventing defects by shaping the way work is done. It’s about the planned, systematic activities used to ensure quality requirements will be met—setting standards, developing procedures, training people, and conducting process audits to improve how design and construction are carried out. By embedding quality into the processes, QA aims to prevent problems before they occur, rather than just finding them after the fact.

Quality Control, by comparison, is reactive—checking the finished work or outputs to identify and correct defects after they appear. Substantiation centers on providing justification for decisions, not the broad quality processes. Design Commitment relates to agreeing to design criteria, but it doesn’t by itself manage the ongoing prevention and process Controls that ensure quality.