Quality assurance
The term product assurance (PA) is often used instead of quality assurance and is, alongside project management and engineering, one of the three primary project functions. Quality assurance is seen as one part of product assurance. Due to the sometimes catastrophic consequences a single failure can have for human lives, the environment, a device, or a mission, product assurance plays a particularly important role here. It has organizational, budgetary and product developmental independence meaning that it reports to highest management only, has its own budget, and does not expend labor to help build a product. Product assurance stands on an equal footing with project management but embraces the customer's point of view.