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At times the mindset in a company or within a project can come to the place that quality is seen as being the concern of the QC/QA representatives. This thinking is not only incorrect but it is potentially dangerous and certainly not in the long term interest of companies or customers.
The job of a QC inspector is to measure by defined standards the quality within a product. They can in no way add to or take away from the quality; production personnel are the only ones who determine the quality within a product.
If the thought of “quality is the next persons responsibility” is allowed to fester on the production side of a project it can harm productivity, customer satisfaction, and safety for our end users.
In a similar manner if the inspector entertains the idea that quality control is in opposition to production it can be just as damaging. The inspector who is looking for a reason to reject an item has lost sight of his/her purpose. We are given acceptance criteria whether from codes standards or company/customer specifications that we may determine if a product is acceptable not rejection criteria.
This distinction may seem to be subtle to some but it is not. If we use as an example a police officer we can see this distinction more clearly. A police officer is given an authority to ensure the law is being upheld; this authority is similar to an inspectors.
How differently would you suppose this officer would perform his/her duties if his focus was to protect and serve as opposed to thinking his job was to punish criminals. Inspectors in the same way must see their duty as being a protection of company, client, and end user.
This mindset will create a cooperation between business units instead of opposition. Just as a citizen may not like a speeding ticket but realizes that the officer is trying to protect both other drivers and the offending driver from possible negative results.
The actions of the QC inspector may not always be accepted or perceived in a positive manner. Yet, the core of quality inspection must use defined standards to protect business units, our company, our customers, and our end users.