Quality assurance

Hi, One of my friend told me that they have a QA department in their company. I ask him what is QA ? and get this old word in new look "Quanlity Assurance". At that time I neglect that word and doesn't bother about it, as i don't know what it is. and thought why we need it. Today, I have been asked that why I haven't check the coding pattern of developers working under me. Hmm , as a project manager and handling 15 projects at one go is it possible for me to check those things ? my answer is NO. not sure my boss love it or not( and ofcourse he will not love it). But now its time for him to think of it. Can they get enough time to think even to check the coding, or about any such things? Its partical problem in Small Software companies, they spend money, but on programmers only. But to make a application click we need more than just programmers or maybe we need to re-read SDLC to know that we been a software company we need more than junior level programmers. And also a Good programmer cannot do miracles. Software programming is Team work, Senior programmer/team leader/project manager all are good if their complete team is. Sumit Gupta