What is the different between “quality control” & “quality assurance”?

Quality Assurance is a managerial concept aimed at assuring high quality of processes, permeating the whole (or essential parts) of business conduct, while involving all professionals in the process.

Quality Control is a corrective concept aimed at evaluating a product (or service provision) in its final result, carried out by some specialized professionals.

Example:

Editing of text in writing and validation of software in software engineering are forms of Quality Assurance. Proofreading of texts in writing and testing of final software are forms of Quality Control.

How long will “made in China” be a bad thing?

Long enough, cause China itself and its increasingly dominating economy, do not seem to mind it at all.

In September 2013 China officially took over the place of US as the largest industrial producer in the world. That’s quality in itself, facilitated by clever utilization of the economic and societal demographics of China as whole that are different from other nations.

It’s a “Chinese industrial revolution” paradigm, and such paradigm takes time to be changed. Besides, competition from only-high-quality-products traditionally industrial countries (UK, US, Germany, Japan, France, Italy etc.) is still there. There was a time when one would go for Taiwanese products when compared to Chinese ones, let alone ones that are made elsewhere like in Europe of the US. This is now history, cause the choice for “better Chinese” is there, too.

 

Now, the Chinese manufacturing culture is showing a non-contradictory, quite transparent distinction (in my opinion) between low, average, high, extremely high quality (luxury) production. This discussion dates from at least 15 years ago, when it became clear to the world that big international brands deliberately choose China for their re-locating production plants, benefiting from low labour-cost and serving the profit motive without jeopardizing their brand equity in their “native markets” as a result of change in quality perception. Selling to “high-affluence” critical markets like the US and Europe, quality had to be maintained to abide by quality measures like the famous CE mark used in Europe.

China makes high quality products, from cloths and apparel to electrical appliance and electronics and heavy materials and the list goes on. The only reason why the old “bad quality” label/stigma is still stuck to China, is the fact it is also a flourishing big market for cheap low-quality re-make products too. Who cares? Well, nobody. Because, it works!