Others may emphasize excellence or performance that meets or exceeds standards. In other words, people can often identify or describe quality but no standard definition exists for this term. Quality assurance and quality control are components of quality improvement but each of these terms has a slightly different meaning. The primary aim of quality assurance is to demonstrate that a service or product fulfills or meets a set of requirements or criteria. Quality control refers to the systematic use of methods to ensure that a service or product conforms to a desired standard.
Quality improvement refers to the betterment or enhancement of a product or service.
When enhancements are ongoing or occur repeatedly over time, the process is known as continuous quality improvement. The American Society for Quality identifies seven basic tools of quality that can help agencies and organizations understand processes so that improvements can be made. It is important to point out that other tools exist and are used, such as flowcharts, rating forms, box plots, and root cause analysis. Definitions and examples of these tools and approaches are available in the data display and quality improvement glossaries at this web site. Many agencies and organizations also use an approach known as benchmarking to make improvements in their products and services.