Quality management as we know it now, started way back in the 1920s. Though the focus of quality management was always the same even prior to this period, that is, on the excellence of the end product, it was then that statistical theory was applied to product quality control.
The product had to go through inspections to determine the quality and that involved examining, measuring and testing the products, processes or services against some specific benchmarks to ensure that each element met the set quality standard and guidelines.
Though this algorithm worked for some time, as businesses began to grow and expand, they started to experience difficulties in passing through the quality control standards. Great need for change and development was felt.
With that, was born the concept of total quality management as we know it today where inspections were carried out by experts responsible for inspection, at intervals; instead of just inspecting the final product.
Thus, detection of any defect or issue was possible early on, decreasing the turnaround time, cost and waste of work hours in rectifying expensive rework.
Since then, various training courses, certifications and quality management online course were developed and made available in the market.
Who is a Quality Assurance Manager?
Someone who is involved in developing and safeguarding the quality standards is known as a quality assurance manager. The core function of a quality manager is to assess the end product in depth, confirm that it meets all the specified requirements and compliance standards, safe to use, operates properly and is free from defects.
Though the quality assurance manager’s salary (on average being around ₹ 14.4 Lakhs), and job profile may seem rewarding, there is much more that gets inside the functions of QA managers that far exceed the day-to-day quality assurance activities.
They need to manage staff, oversee production processes, analyze data and develop strategies or policies for higher quality standards.
Role of a Quality Assurance Manager
Being a leadership position and commensurate with the quality assurance manager’s salary, their roles are quite comprehensive and they head a team consisting of quality control inspectors or specialists.
On a daily basis, a quality control manager is found to be doing the following:
- Framing the quality control policies and standards for the company.
- Training the team members on quality control (QC) processes, policies and practices.
- Overseeing the activities of the team of quality assurance inspectors or specialists.
- Constant testing and sampling of the products to ensure that they meet the stipulated specifications.
- Taking in-house audits of product inventory and watching out the documentation involved.
- In the case of products, ensure that they are properly labeled.
- Pay attention to customer complaints and their timely solutions.
- Ensuing the safety norms and processes are met in case of sensitive products.
- Scrutinizing operational data, identifying defects and issues.
- Forming strategies for improving efficiency and profitability of the company.
- Coordinating with external stakeholders and companies to learn about their findings and observations.
- In case of customer complaints or a product not meeting the intended standard, pass on the information to the production department.
- Continuous interaction between production and product performance departments.
With all such responsibilities to manage naturally the question that comes to mind is, what it takes to be a quality manager.
Definitely, quality managers must meet a variety of skill sets. In general terms, those can be enlisted as follows:
- Experience with quality management systems (QMS). Knowledge of Six Sigma like a Green belt Course could be helpful.
- Leadership and people skills to handle teams, cross-functional projects and stakeholders.
- Eye to details to capture the minute measurement specifications or defects.
- Quantitative skills- for measuring, calibration, calculation of specifications, data capturing and drawing results are some of the things that are required daily.
- Critical thinking – to work through customer problems or production issues and develop strategies for quality improvement.
- Stamina- this is not a desk job. Sometimes they would be standing almost the entire day and running around between different departments.
- Skills to read and comprehend blueprints, technical documents and manuals.
- Insatiable desire to achieve and deliver the best and always remain at the top of performance.
Many of these skills need technical education. For the same reason, quality assurance managers mostly need to have some associate degree or certifications, say, for example, lean six sigma black belt certification to help remain functionally adept with the finer nuances of the quality as demanded by modern businesses.
Having understood the roles of quality assurance managers, the strategies that they follow to meet their role expectations need to be discussed. Broadly speaking, their entire functionalities can be fulfilled by following these procedures:
- Selecting the QA Team
- Defining the quality standards
- Collaborating with other functions
1. Selecting the QA Team
The QA managers select different QA specialists, preferably those who have some quality certifications like lean six sigma yellow belt training or similar, along with different technologies that would be required to cover the quality parameters in the various components of the final product or result.
It is a critical task and requires careful thought to determine the needs of the composition of the team and its dimension as well. Accordingly, the profile requirements are designed and employees hired (if they are not available in the organization).
It will be required to determine the tasks, responsibilities, areas of collaboration and synchronization and tools that would be needed for the comprehensive management of the QA team of the company.
2. Defining the quality standards
Depending on the type of industry this task could be relatively simple to quite complex, for example in the IT Sector.
In many cases, the requirements are not specified formally, as it happens in Agile but based on implied assumptions, and verbal communications while defining and implementing the functionality.
For example, the quality assurance in an IT firm starts from the need to carry out and then translate this functional analysis for defining the test cases and the possibility of knowing the coverage. This process needs to be planned and supervised using a test case management tool that can integrate with other tools, generate reports, histories and so forth.
3. Collaborating with other functions
This is a significant aspect of a quality manager's role. Effective synchronization with other members of the team or cross-functional teams is extremely important to minimize the risks of lack of clarity, conflicting priorities, miscommunication and unrealistic timeline.
Challenges of Quality Assurance Leadership
Quality assurance continues to remain a critical function with its importance increasingly felt throughout the world as business needs, ways of delivering products and customer demands are fast changing.
It plays an equally important role in every sector from software development to production or manufacturing. Any shoddy end product will be ruthlessly thrown out with companies shutting down; hence focusing on quality now has become every business’s choiceless choice.
While a lot is spoken about the duties and responsibilities of quality managers and the skills they need, hardly any mention is made of the challenges they may need to face in different sectors of industries.
A rundown here will help throw light on this so that the current and aspiring quality assurance managers perhaps could prepare themselves.
Cultural split
In many companies, the quality department is often regarded as a separate stand-alone box, more of a departmental role, leading to the formation of a cultural divide within the organization.
The culture of quality therefore should be ingrained throughout the company which improves productivity and better-quality work.
Standardizing Metrics
Another challenge of quality assurance leadership is measuring, collecting and reporting quality metrics. Have the right metrics been chosen and defined properly? Will these accurately represent the data they are supposed to track? Will they provide actionable information for the management? Determining the right and effective metrics and standardizing them plays a vital role in the quality assurance function.
Data Integration
Integrating diverse data sources like suppliers, and stakeholders is something very common the quality assurance experts face. System and data integration early in the project will help ensure that vendor data or its amalgamation will not cause any issues on the production line. That is to say, making system integration and quality key components of any project to get the desired result is yet another tough task the quality managers need to handle .
Salary Structure of a Quality Assurance Manager Salary
According to various salary aggregator websites, in India, QA Manager's salary ranges between ₹ 5.5 Lakhs to ₹ 30.3 Lakhs with an average annual salary of ₹ 14.4 Lakhs.
It needs to be kept into consideration that such websites collect and compute data from anonymous individuals using their sites. It is always possible that some sites gather larger amounts than others. Therefore, the figures may vary to a large extent from site to site.
Factors Determining Quality Assurance Manager Salary
Several factors can determine a quality control manager salary.
Experience
No doubt this would be a good parameter for drawing a higher salary. The more time one spends working as a quality assurance manager, the more one learns. This includes learning the work and the pitfalls to avoid as well, which experience alone can teach.
Location
Where a person lives is another determinant factor. In general terms, quality control job salary in a large metropolitan city correlates to a higher salary, although expenses or cost of living are also high in such areas.
Company
The salary range can vary greatly depending on the type and size of the company. A small company definitely will not be able to match the package offered by a large brand like L&T or Capgemini.
Large companies or brands have structured pay depending on hierarchies existing in the quality control department. For example, the quality assurance officer salary would be different from the director of quality assurance salary.
Nevertheless, here is some data gathered from different salary aggregator websites that show salary variances of quality assurance managers in terms of location, company brand and experience.
Quality Assurance Manager: Pay Scale Based on Location
Quality Assurance Manager: Pay Scale Based on Companies
Quality Assurance Manager: Pay Scale Based on Experience
#1-4 years of experience (Early Career)
The average cost to the company (includes tips, bonus, and overtime pay) of ₹391,914 (based on 58 salaries).
#5-9 years of experience (Mid-career)
The average cost to the company (includes tips, bonus, and overtime pay) of ₹863,716 (based on 151 salaries).
# 10-19 years of experience (Late career)
The average cost to the company (includes tips, bonus, and overtime pay) of ₹1,500,062 (based on 631 salaries).
#20 years and above QA lead salary (Experienced / Leaders)
The Average cost to the company (includes tips, bonus, and overtime pay) of ₹1,406,933.
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Conclusion
Quality management has evolved and gone way beyond the fundamentals developed in the 20th Century by quality pioneers. Mature quality control systems like ISO standards and Six Sigma keep guiding the quality processes and principles across the globe.
There were and still are many major trends responsible for influencing the development of quality management principles, methods, tools and technology.
Some of these are, changing geopolitics, markets, supply chains, international standardization of product and management systems, Industry 4.0 technologies like – big data, quantum computing, connectivity and robotics and finally the demographics.
Quality assurance therefore will require the constant pursuit of catching up with these trends and technologies. The managers and leaders always will have to be on their toes to keep themselves updated with the knowledge and the latest skills as per the changing need.
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