Lesson 2 - Quality Assurance and Quality Management
This lesson looks at the management of quality both generally and in the brewery. It discusses definitions of quality and then explains and compares approaches to quality control and quality assurance. Next, it details the components of a formal quality management system as well as tools used in quality management. Finally, it explains what tools are available for the systematic management of food safety and product integrity, and considers how these apply in the brewing industry.
Preface
To begin this lesson we consider what the opposite of good quality looks like: a badly organised brewery making uncontrolled volumes of poor quality beer which will ultimately fail. The material covered in this lesson is extremely important because we need to sustain the quality of what we make or we are likely to fail, even if we use best practice in all the elements of brewing.
This lesson explains how to utilise quality assurance and quality management to avoid the above scenario. We will look at how to use these methods to build quality into what we make and how we make it. Before we consider the broader concept of quality, we are going to define what we mean by it.