The word 'Quality' in context to software refers to compliance of requirements and specifications in the developed software so as to meet the needs and expectations of the users. These requirements may be both functional and non-functional requirements.
Software Quality Control (SQC) ensures the task of achieving and maintaining the quality in a software product. It may be seen as a set of activities that are being carried out with the aim of achieving quality from each different perspective in a software product. These activities may consist of tracing, identifying, removing and correcting of maximum number of possible bugs or defects in the software. In short, SQC consists of different testing activities along with some other activities, comprehensively to control and achieve the desired level of quality in a product.
Although, both SQC and SQA are being carried out in the direction of achieving of quality attributes in a software product, still they are not same. SQA concerns with the pre-development and on-going development process whereas SQC is usually a post-development process. SQA ensures the appropriate standards and correct procedures for developing the desired quality of software, while SQC corrects the developed software (if required) to improve & enhance its quality. Thus, it may be interpreted that SQA is process-oriented and SQC is product oriented.
You may also visit our related article: Software Quality Assurance Vs Software Quality Control; to gain more points of differences between these two.
Generally, SQC follows a defined strategy, namely PDCA cycle i.e. Plan, Do, Check and Act for controlling the quality.
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The process of quality control is not limited to testing only. Apart from testing, SQC includes reviews and analysis. These reviews and analysis may be applicable to requirement, planning, design, test cases, and many other things.
You can find out, how SQC is more than testing, more precisely and accurately in our article- Quality Assurance Vs Quality Control Vs Testing .
Testing is an important component of the SQC for verifying and validating the specified requirements in the developed software. There are numerous testing methods available for carrying out the testing task for different-different needs. Some of them are
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Although, SQA is essential for development process but it may not guarantee the maximum possible quality of the product as it is limited to process and procedures, but through SQC, we may be assured of attaining maximum quality as it directly works on the software product to remove any defects or bugs that may occur in the software product, even after the implementation of SQA.
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