Conformance quality refers to the production of products and delivery of services that meet specified standards or requirements. It is often viewed from the perspective of operational teams, who focus on ensuring that products and services conform to specifications through processes such as quality control and quality assurance. On the other hand, marketing teams and customers may view quality in terms of how well products and services meet their needs and expectations.

Ensuring conformance quality is important for a variety of reasons. It helps to ensure that products and services are reliable and perform as intended, which can lead to customer satisfaction and loyalty. It can also help to prevent costly defects and errors that can impact the bottom line. By focusing on conformance quality, organizations can improve their efficiency and effectiveness, as well as their reputation and competitiveness in the market. The following are illustrative examples.

Manufacturing

A bicycle tire manufacturer tests every unit off a production line. When a problem is found, it is escalated to quality assurance teams who investigate and address the root cause of the nonconformance.

Telecom

A telecom company performs quality control with network testing tools that evaluate quality factors such as latency. When an issue it found it is escalated to incident management. Quality assurance teams follow up on incidents to address persistent problems.

Maintenance

A high speed train maintenance team performs quality control inspections of all work to confirm it complies with maintenance procedures.

Software

A software-as-a-service provider monitors services to ensure conformance to service level agreements. Violations of SLA are escalated to service management processes. The process of service management is monitored by a quality assurance team that looks at overall process improvements.