QC Engineer

QC Engineer

The QC or QA engineers are responsible for ensuring the quality of the products that are rolled out by the production line. The scope of operation of quality engineers is wide and huge and these engineers can exercise their knowledge to improve the quality standards of almost any and every production process that ranges from software programs to gigantic machines. Most of the quality engineers host an enormous knowledge base regarding improvement and maintenance of quality. On the basis of their observations, engineers suggest improvements, which always tend to be dynamic, following which they suggest measures to maintain the current quality. The process again restarts with improvement and leads to maintenance and control of quality. This process is continual and everlasting as there is potentially, no end to the level or standard of quality a certain production process can offer. QC or QA engineers tend to go to great lengths to ascertain, control, verify and validate the products quality.
Quality Engineer: A Profession and a Way of Life
Mankind has two very common habits: to make, manufacture and create, and the other is, list and rank. Every company, no matter what covets the first rank and the only way to become the best is to improve the quality, control it and lastly, assure the same to customers of firm/company. During a flight from Berlin to New York, I met a former Naval engineer who had worked in the Garrison as a Quality in-charge and was currently the Chief of Procurement and Sales of a very prominent mechanical engineering company. In a highly enlightening conversation, he narrated the way of life of the QA/QC engineers who worked in his team.
QA/QC is an acronym of Quality assurance and Quality Control. When we step into any workplace where something is on the production line, a hustle and bustle of workers activities reaches us. May it be the production and assembly line of Boeing or may it be polished offices of Microsoft, every person, team, department and company has only one persistent though in mind, how can I make this product the best product. Output of the entire production process is a result of the collective process of several people, tools, materials, technologies and knowledge. At the helm of the worry-ship of quality is the QC or QA engineer. This person is rarely found in the gloomy cabin or cubicle, instead you will find him jumping and bounding from desk to desk yelling out instructions and suggestions to workers and technicians.
It all starts with the product itself. Even during the designing stage, a quality engineer is present even when an expected bench mark for the prototype of the product is set. In such a case the engineer virtually hunts down all potential competitor's products, tries and tests them out and makes a cost and budget-aware benchmark of the potential quality of the product.
The engineer is then involved in the quality control of the product when the product in being produced. In such cases validation and verification of all stages of production, right from raw materials to machining quality and even packaging up to a certain benchmark is ascertained by the quality engineers. The basic intention is to control and maintain the bench mark quality throughout the process and processes, right from input to output. In all these situations finding faults and weaknesses in the production processes and the production itself is an integral part of the duties of the QA/QC engineer.
The next important step is of ascertaining and guaranteeing the quality, in measured units if possible. This is the toughest part as the guarantee is given to clients and often there is a contractual basis for the same. The assurance and grantee part is often so tough that several companies tend to have one QC and another QA engineer. The QC engineer controls and verifies the level of quality that is to be achieved in the production process. The quality assurance on the other hand is carried out for the purpose of validation, that is certifying a certain batch of products and their quality.
The QC engineer thus sets the quality benchmark and sees to that it is achieved. Then the QA engineer assures and inspects the product for quality, detects faults and also finalizes the 'claim' of quality assurance that is promised to the customer.
The steps that are involved in the process of quality control and quality assurance are summarized into PDCA. Plan, do, check and act. The aforementioned steps, though a bit vague, consist of the PDCA functions of the QA/QC engineer.
General Qualifications and Career Path
If you are planning to embark on a career as a QC or QA engineer then these are some job facts that you ought to know.
First off, the career prospects of the quality engineer are extremely bright as such engineers are required in almost all places where anything is being produced. Anything from software to mechanical engineering industry.
Before becoming a QA or QC engineer, you will need to be an engineer in the field yourself, with a certain experience. Plus you will require some kind of after-formal-eduction degree or a certification such as a diploma or membership of some academic bodies. It's not mandatory but it will significantly improve your career prospects.
You can familiarize yourself with concepts such as ISO, Quality Management Maturity Grid, Six Sigma and Zero Defects quality check standard. Apart from that you can also familiarize yourself with works of quality standards gurus such as Philip B. Crosby, W. Edwards Deming and Joseph M.