AST SeaPort-e Team Quality Assurance

The overall purpose of our Quality Assurance (QA) approach is to provide for consistent successful delivery of quality products and services that meet the requirements. AST has invested heavily in the development, maintenance, and internal evaluation of compliance with standard policies, plans, and repeatable procedures for QA. Our Corporate QA policies include:

• Corporate QA goals
• Development of a unique QA plan for each contract
• QA independence from project teams
• Non-compliance resolution hierarchy
• QA audit process to ensure that effective QA activities are performed
• QA activity records maintained during contract performance

Contract specific QA policies and processes, driven by Corporate QA Policy, are tailored to meet the technical, cost, and schedule needs of individual contracts, programs and tasks. The advantage of starting with existing proven plans is that we take advantage of lessons learned, while ensuring consistency. AST’s quality assurance processes, as tailored for Seaport-e, will be mandatory for all of our teammates for work on Seaport-e task orders. To facilitate this requirement, all Seaport-e QA guidelines, plans, and procedures will be electronically available for use by our Teammates via Internet on the secure AST DCMS Seaport-e portal in the documentation library. Our rigorous QA processes apply to both deliverables and processes used throughout the TO cycle, starting with the proposal response to, continuing throughout TO execution, and afterwards during our wrap-up “lessons learned” activities. The Seaport-e contract tailored QA Plan will include:

• Master Schedule—Collection and review of all contract and task order requirements, milestones, deliverables, schedules, and plans.
• Metrics—Identification, measurement, collection and reporting of key metrics.
• QA review processes—Use of appropriate review processes to assure quality objectives are met on all project deliverables and work performed.
• Risk Management—Risk management is integrated into all actions.
• Issue Management—Develop and maintain a database of issues to record and track throughout the life cycle. Conduct monthly In-Progress Reviews (IPR) at contract level.
• Document Control—A controlled system for technical and user documentation.
• Status Reporting—Reporting of key metrics, activities, and any non-compliance issues to clients and corporate leadership. Documented in monthly management reports.