SeaPort Enhanced

MSIS Quality Assurance Program

Mountain State Information Systems, Inc. (MSIS) is a strong believer in the principle that customers demand and deserve an extraordinary quality of work. To this end, MSIS ensures adherence to customer quality assurance (QA) standards, processes and procedures when MSIS is in the position of a subcontractor to any of our associated Seaport-Enhanced prime contractors. When MSIS is performing work as a Seaport-Enhanced prime contractor, we follow our QA program as outlined below as well as any government QA standards, processes and procedures applicable to the specific task order.

Quality Assurance Program Purpose: Provide MSIS, customer, and government staff and management with objective insight into work processes and products.

MSIS Quality Assurance Goals:

1. Evaluate work processes and products by performing objective comparisons against applicable process descriptions, standards, and procedures,
2. Identify and document noncompliance issues,
3. Communicate the results of quality assurance activities to MSIS, customer,and government staff and management, and
4. Ensure that noncompliance issues are addressed.

Discussion:

Project-specific QA criteria, plans, standards, and procedures are established early in the project’s life cycle to determine what products and processes will be subject to the MSIS QA Program. MSIS project-specific QA processes, schedules, method details, and personnel involvement are determined at this time for each project. These decisions are reviewed for adequacy and applicability during project performance.

MSIS strives for objectivity in its QA program by using senior management not associated directly with the specific project to perform QA functions as appropriate in addition to the use of project-specific criteria used by MSIS staff working directly on the project. In addition, MSIS senior management reviews the QA work products produced during the performance of staff-level QA activities.

Noncompliance issues are addressed initially in the project and are resolved there if possible. Those that cannot be resolved locally are escalated to senior management. Methods of resolving non-compliance issues include fixing the non-compliance, adjusting criteria if appropriate (standards, procedures, process descriptions), and providing a waiver.

Analysis of noncompliance issues is performed to determine trends that can be addressed for possible process and product improvements. Trends are communicated and discussed with stakeholders to facilitate development of work product and process-related improvements.

MSIS QA activities are documented to show results that include non-compliance issues identified and the processes and work products reviewed that led to these non-compliance issues. This QA documentation includes the method used to resolve each non-compliance issue, time lines, and management level. QA documentation is analyzed periodically to determine lessons learned and adjust the MSIS QA program for improvement. These results are then communicated to MSIS management and staff.

Methods: The MSIS QA Program draws from the following methods during project start-up to define the QA Program for each specific project.

1. Distributed review and comment of work products,
2. Peer reviews,
3. Desk audits,
4. Formal audits, and
5. Discussions with customers-feedback on performance.

As a small business, MSIS relies on the QA roles being performed as much as possible by peers. That is why we list distributed review and comment and peer review as our top two QA methods. Critical products and processes are regularly reviewed by MSIS senior management. We also rely on MSIS senior management’s involvement with the customer on a frequent, periodic basis to obtain feedback on MSIS performance to ensure we are meeting our customer’s quality goals.

MSIS promotes an environment that encourages employee participation in QA activities to identify and handle QA issues. This is reinforced at our periodic MSIS company-wide meetings, currently held monthly.