Any manufacturing business must rely on quality control and assurance to verify that their products meet standards for safety, quality, and efficacy. Regardless of the type of product your business produces, establishing a quality control process will help you keep tighter control over the products you release to your customers.
Protect Against Variations
When you mass produce a product, your goal is to ensure every product is similar in appearance and use. For example, a chocolate bar manufacturer will want every chocolate bar to taste exactly the same. If one batch isn’t as good as the rest, the reason for that variation will have to be determined. Whether it’s a mechanical issue or subpar ingredients, the source will have to be recognized and fixed.
Protect Against Liability
If a product is released with a defect of some kind, you may be exposed to a product liability lawsuit. This is one of the primary reasons for maintaining a quality control team that tests every batch of the product. This ensures each batch is manufactured in accordance with established standards, reducing the likelihood that a product liability claim will arise from a defective product. Your quality control team’s primary responsibility is to ensure every product is safe for public consumption.
Reduce Production Errors
When you follow a set process or procedure, you can eliminate waste that results from production errors. Even in a strictly regulated manufacturing process, mistakes do happen. Your quality control team will test your products at various stages in the manufacturing process to ensure quality standards are consistently met. If they locate a problem, the manufacturing process can be stopped before a large number of products are manufactured. This can save you from having to discard an entire batch, which means thousands of dollars worth of raw materials would have been wasted. In this way, quality control can save your business tens of thousands of dollars every year.
Your quality control and assurance department will have to anticipate any issues that could affect the quality of your products. While most potential hazards are recognized in advance, this isn’t always the case. For that reason, your quality control personnel will have to remain alert at all times and adjust their policies to protect against new or unforeseen threats.