During many years of quality auditing in airline and MRO environments, it has become apparent that a well managed effective Quality System will not just save the organisation money, it may one day save the organisation. Steven Bentley, Manager at Sofema Aviation Services in Sofia, Bulgaria, explains how. The Quality System means Quality Control (QC)…

Quality and safety are first cousins – sometimes the Quality Manager is also responsible for safety, in larger organisations a separate Safety Manager will be found. The role of the safety system is to assess risk and consider the severity of potentials issues and develop appropriate response strategies and to bring this to the attention…

There are three steps to an effective Total Quality System: capture data and to process it in a way which identifies wasteful processes; use this data to drive efficient changes in procedures which will benefit the organisation; and use the Quality Audit System to ensure that the organisation is following correctly all processes and procedures….

The role of QA is two-fold. As just described it is to demonstrate the organisation complies with all regulatory requirements placed on it, however there is a more fundamental role, to share with the post holders and the accountable manager the deviations within the system from the company processes and procedures as well as discrepancies…