I do not work in industry, but I'm currently at the 2017 American Medical Device Summit in Chicago. I spoke with Liz Iversen who is the SVP, Chief Quality and Regulatory Officer at Philips. After FDA Recalls and shutting down their Cleveland plant in 2014 they have restructured and put in place new division heads and Liz has worked closely with the CEO, Frans van Houten, to develop a proactive quality culture and implementing a quality transformation. Topics included; evaluating and assessing the culture continuum, challenges and risks, quantifying the business value of a culture of quality, creating and streamlining effective models for evaluating the culture of quality, and developing and sustain the gains of the quality culture and adopting change management.

Philips' CEO highlights the importance of Quality Culture and is implementing a Quality Transformation in Philips. As we mentioned the Cost of Quality in another post the Philips CEO says "the ultimate cost of not being focused on not being focused on quality is that we do not have a future. It is really the simple, it is really that serious."
A message from Philips CEO to quality professionals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZFiSkjjCVc

So although this is out of my scope. It seems that in order to improve quality culture you need employee engagement and higher level engagement to implement the quality unit as not a barrier but a collaborative unit with the rest of the company to work together to get a quality product out to the patient.

With more and more companies wanting to adapt a lean culture to reduce downtime, increase efficiency, and reduce waste improving Quality and Manufacturing practices is key. I believe one of the first aspects in improving Quality in general is getting everybody on board to buy in to this culture. By doing this, most departments will be open minded to improving all aspects of quality and manufacturing.

To answer your question one way that comes to mind to improve Quality Control is to identify what type of processes within the company are essentially redundant and fail to add much value. Specifically, I find that improving the inspection process of parts and devices is a huge way to improve Quality Control. Quality control usually does 100% inspection of parts and devices at some point. Identifying a way to reduce the amount of time for this I find adds much value. For example, if Quality Control has to do 100% inspection in which they have to measure all dimensions of a part or device based on a drawing, could take a substantial amount of time if the lot size is large. A simple way to reduce this downtime and still be effective in detecting failures is to only identify which dimensions are critical to failure and have Quality Control only inspect those dimensions. In addition, doing First Article Inspections on the first couple parts can also contribute to still meeting Quality standards in quicker turn around time.

Another way to improve Quality Control is to provide better equipment to the department for them to conduct their analysis. Inspection equipment can be old or very tedious in how it functions. For example, using devices like Optical Comparators is a great device to magnify an object but can be time consuming to use and also cause more stringent analysis of inspection then what is actually necessary.

I believe that the most important aspect of an effective quality control program is to have a clear line of communication between all sides who are working within the project. It is important that everyone knows their position in the project and that the work that they do contributes to the overall completion of the project and that it does not hinder the progress of the other parts of the project.
Furthermore, it is important to point out that typical quality testing is done at the end and with that, I believe that it is more beneficial if quality testing is done as checkpoints during the development process, it will minimize the problems within the system instead of it piling up. This will also save time because it will remove the countless times that the product has to be modified.

One can always improve a department by defining processes – look at every aspect of production process and clearly define and streamline processes.
Always hire qualified candidates who possess the qualification, knowledge, skill and experience. Furthermore, always provide in house training to sharpen skill set and transfer knowledge form best employees to new hires. Candidates should be able to understand and adhere to exact specification of company’s processes
Create repeatable processes and last but not the least, if absolute success was attained using a specific process one should maintain the said process and tweak process when needed without a complete overhaul

I agree with @aaq2 and @myton's opinions. I would like to summarize a few main points and add a few more points to the ideas for improving quality control:
1. Define processses, streamline processes as @aaq2 has mentioned: By doing so, you can always check if there's room for improvement. For ex: are there any steps that are uncessary, or any steps that are nescessary but skipped.
2. Qualiied candidates
3. Plan epeatable processes
4. Have a back-up/preventative plan
5. Good Communication plan
6. Lastly, plan for continuous improvement

Quality is the one attribute any manufacturer cannot hide – it screams who they are louder than any marketing campaign or PR strategy. Nothing says more about a manufacturer than how they prioritize quality management in manufacturing and information, intelligence, systems and processes necessary to excel in this critical area. In service industries, the higher the quality and more consistent a customers’ experience the higher the profitability of a business (Kimes, 2001). A study by Accenture and the National Small Business United Group (NSBU) showed that mid-tier manufacturers who attained the highest level of quality also were more profitable than their peer group companies (Quality, 1993).

Manufacturers who choose to embed quality deep into their enterprises, doing the hard work of making it a core part of their DNA over time see the following benefits:

Reduced manufacturing costs attributable to less material waste;
Greater efficiency of tools and manufacturing equipment;
Greater optimization of skilled workers’ time and talents;
Improved supplier quality;
Improved traceability across the entire production process;
Continual reductions in non-compliance.
Orchestrating all of these measurable gains together to create a unified enterprise quality strategy makes any manufacturer significantly more agile, enabling the ability to reconfigure operations, processes and business relationships in real-time (Alexander, 2002).

Strategies For Improving Quality Management

This is the first post in a series that explains why manufacturers need to adopt a more enterprise-wide approach to quality, not allowing these systems to be siloed, delivering limited effectiveness as a result. The series will focus on how manufacturers can use the Six Sigma DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control) methodologies to get the most value from their quality management efforts. Three of the five elements of DMAIC are covered in this first post.

Complex manufacturers need to get beyond the myopic mindset that isolated, non-integrated quality management systems are good enough. That mindset invites mediocre performance when what’s needed is a strong focus on enterprise-wide results. Of the many strategies manufacturers are using for improving quality management performance, the following five are delivering solid, long-term results:

1. Creating and reinforcing a strategic framework of quality that permeates every aspect of a manufacturer’s value chain is essential.

2. Supplier quality management objectives need to be defined before procurement and strategic sourcing is undertaken and integrated into inbound inspection, traceability and audits.

3. Quality Control and compliance departments need to get beyond just reacting to quality management problems and take a much more proactive, strategic approach instead.

4. Measurements of quality performance are the baseline that supplier management, production, fulfillment and services measure themselves by.

5. Quality process control programs need to be based on metrics and KPIs that serve as guard rails to keep quality management on track to meeting and exceeding customer requirements first.

http://www.ibaset.com/blog/improving-quality-management-in-manufacturing/

Improving the Quality departments is always an important decision. The biggest would be to track mistakes, keeping a paper trail and enhanced data transparency. This will help with not repeating mistakes and if there is any form of auditing occurring, then accurate and thorough records will be in the favor of the company. Another great improvement would be to improve the training and have an update to date, reoccurring workshops on quality risk protocols. This will keep the team sharp and they won't lose the minute knowledge that slips after a long period. Lastly, a good improvement would be to have more employee and stakeholder input on their efficiency, productivity, and quality concerns. Multiple opinions can be beneficial when establishing problems solving methods that work.

I believe Scott's first point - that everyone must buy into a "culture" of quality - is extremely essential. A number of workplaces will have a "not my problem" attitude when it comes to quality. Quality is also sacrificed when middle managers cut corners in an attempt to meet unreasonable demands set by executive managers. When a company has a strong culture of quality, employees will want to create the best products (and/or can be incentivized to do so).

Aside from a strong culture of quality, employees need good instructions. Well-designed instructions that let employees know how to ensure quality standards are upheld are a must for any organization aiming to achieve high levels of quality control. Poor instructions and poor communication are generally major reasons for QC failure.

Quality is a customer determination, not an engineer’s determination, not a marketing determination, or a general management determination. It is based upon the customer’s actual experience with the product or service, measured against his/her requirements - stated or unstated, conscious or merely sensed - and always represents a moving target.

Therefore I believe that any strategy planned toward improving quality control should always have the final users as the key note consideration.

The quality control department is necessary in making sure that products companies release are effective and have low to no risks. A major issue with quality control is the miscommunication that goes on between the various departments. Sometimes issues arrive after products are developed because the products do not follow the regulations that quality control department set. As a result, there becomes a delay, or even cancellation, of the release of certain products. This is due to there not being a clear communication between the departments. Also, as someone has previously stated, it is important to have more checkpoints with quality control for products as they are being made. This will allow for products to more likely follow the regulations of the quality control department. A way to be more successful in the release of products, there should be someone from the quality department present as the products are being made. This way, if certain violations are done, they can be fixed right away, instead of later, and will cause less of a delay in the release of products.

I feel that involving all the employee would be the better way to achieve the quality.
Take Necessary Steps to Involve Every Employee. It's not enough to simply adopt "quality" as a catchy slogan. You must actively design and implement a program that educates, empowers and supports every worker in your business. You must:
provide specific programs, written guidelines, and training sessions for all company personnel
allow for decision-making and mistakes by all company personnel
provide a specific timetable for training, behavioral modification, and feedback
commit to weeding out uncooperative company personnel
Involve employees in development your quality program. To the degree possible, company personnel should be directly involved with the creation, modification, and writing of evolving quality guidelines and suggestions for improvement. Involvement may range from the simple suggestion box to written plan suggestions with preliminary cost savings/business increase analysis.
Encourage cross-functional communication. It's important that people in different functions or departments are encouraged to talk with and get help from each other. For example, the shipping and receiving worker who has an idea on improving unloading of cargo by arranging pallets in the trucks should be allowed to discuss and obtain more information from the buyers who order the cargo, so he can configure pallet loads more efficiently from suppliers.
Communicate regularly. The more participation by company employees in quality programs and the more ways they think up to improve customer satisfaction, the better the quality! Once your people understand and accept new TQM programs, regular discussion sessions should be scheduled to discuss quality problems and opportunities at least once each month. Ideally, these discussion sessions should be held across functional or departmental boundaries.

I agree with a lot of akshayakirthy's points when it comes to involving the employees in quality control. It is highly important to have written guidelines and rules in order for all the employees to follow. When it comes to product development, the product should meet the requirements in order to pass the inspection and be used by others. Seminars and communication is the key in order to implement these rules in a company. Documentation is important when it comes to quality control as well. If a certain procedure has given the company absolute success, then it should be written down and continuously used, while remained documented to teach new members of the company. Having equipment improvement teams and a preventative maintenance plan can also improve the quality control department. Equipment improvement teams allows the equipment to be reliable and tracks equipment restoration efforts. A preventative maintenance plan is a key to avoiding big costs to replace broken equipment. This allows for efficient product development and production.

To have a good quality control department the following should be done;
A. Have a document management system in place. This will speed up documentation and no longer have to wait weeks for paper documents to make their way around the office. Documents can be reviewed and approved from anywhere by company departments' leadership.
B. Mistake tracking. Setting standard, the process of setting a product's specifications and then running a sample testing on a small number of units to see how closely they measure up to those specs.
C. Good communication within the quality control department and outside departments
D. Training workers at all levels to look for ways to improve quality and to ameliorate problems.

Quality is one of the most important aspects of a company. I think quality can be improved if there is commitment towards the quality of the product or the services and it should be reinforced again and again. Then I think Tracking the mistakes is one of the important aspects for any product and services, for the manufacturers the process of tracking of the error involves statistical quality control which includes product’s specification and sampling few units and measuring how the product specifications are met. If there is lot of deviation, then the manufacturing process is altered. The other way of improving the quality is by investing in the training which involves the employees for training them for connecting them with work ethics and the company’s overall performance. Next, the quality can be improved by organizing quality circles of employees who are encouraged to recommend the improvement of the product and services. By encouraging new ideas from the employees, the quality can be improved. Next, defining the quality from the customers perspective about how the quality can be improved it usually comes from the sales and marketing department.