QA/QC
Quality assurance is the process designed to prevent defects; quality control is the inspection that catches the ones that happen anyway.
Also known as: Quality assurance and quality control · QA vs QC
The two get written as one acronym and treated as one activity, which is why neither tends to work. Quality assurance is upstream and preventative: the method statements, the approved submittals, the sequencing, the trade briefings — everything intended to make the right outcome the likely one. Quality control is downstream and detective: the inspections, the hold points, the tests, the sign-offs that catch what slipped through.
The practical distinction is who is responsible and when. QA belongs to whoever plans the work, and it happens before anyone lifts a tool. QC belongs to whoever verifies it, and by definition happens after. A project heavy on QC and light on QA finds its problems, expensively, at the point they are hardest to fix.
On a residential build this does not need a manual. It needs hold points agreed in advance — before the insulation goes in, before the drywall closes, before the slab pours — and a dated record with photographs at each. That record is also what answers a warranty claim two years later.
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