Defect identification is primarily a component of which process?

Defect identification is primarily a component of quality control. Quality control focuses on monitoring and inspecting processes and products to ensure they meet defined quality standards. This includes identifying defects and variances from specifications, thereby allowing organizations to take corrective actions to eliminate or reduce defects and ensure that the final output meets customer expectations and regulatory requirements.

While quality assurance, process improvement, and continuous improvement are important aspects of a quality management system, they focus more on preventing defects or enhancing processes over time rather than the immediate detection of defects in products or services. Quality assurance concerns the establishment of processes to prevent defects, process improvement aims at optimizing processes for better performance, and continuous improvement focuses on the ongoing effort to enhance products, services, or processes. Thus, quality control remains the most directly related process to defect identification.