What is QA/QC?

Well, I am working for the QA/QC team of my company. However, I never know the real meaning of this name. I know QA is quality assurance and QC is quality control, but what is the difference between them? Do we need both of them? Can we just simply call ourselves QA or QC? I never try to find out the definition.

Recently, I had read a NDT handbook from ASNT and it gives me the answer. Quality assurance is the establishment of a program to guarantee the desired quality level of a product from raw materials through fabrication, assembly and delivery. Quality control is the physical and administrative actions required to ensure compliance with the quality assurance program. So, that means as an inspector, I am responsible for the part in quality control but not quality assurance.

If there is no QA program, we cannot carry out any QC inspection. So QA is to assure the quality of product to our client and QC is the procedure or action to ensure the standard provided in QA program is compiled. Therefore, to have a high quality product, both QA & QC are essential.