[dpark]

If you drive improved quality into the initial product phases in a factory, that’s still QA. QA is not an independent process unless management is incompetent.

But you will not drive significantly higher quality into earlier phases by telling your factory workers to try to do a better job. You drive higher quality by analyzing where your processes are failing you and changing them so that they no longer do.

If your workers are consistently failing to tighten bolts sufficiently, you can add a QA step to check the bolts every time, or require your workers use a torque wrench, or use a robot to make this more consistent. But you have to do something other than telling them to try harder. You undoubtedly told them to try harder already and it didn’t work. Now you need better tools or processes.

[Retric]

QA let's you build a robot to tighten a bolt, then build a robot to test the bolt is tightened and repeat as needed. It's inherently output focused.

However, the lady designing the factory in the first place should know if tightening bolts or using an arc wielder has more issues. So sure, QA should include checking the oil level inside a robot in the factory to avoid problems in the first place. But QA is not all inclusive it's not for example part of the collage education that's training your workforce other than perhaps a requirement that they have said degree.

[dpark]

I'm not sure what you're trying to get at. Production is output focused.

QA is the system of trying to produce at the desired quality. Anything done to improve quality is QA, including whether you hire better employees or train the ones you have. You can define QA more narrowly if you like, but then we're arguing semantics and we're already off in the weeds.