QUALITY ASSURANCE

The objective of the RHarvey Group’s Quality Assurance Program is to provide the customer with safe quality services that insure performance is not adversely affected.   To meet this objective our Quality Management System (QMS) quality product through the use of a diligent quality oversight of work processes, and identifying and correcting deficiencies in outlines an assurance and reporting process that dovetail to the quality processes techniques and metrics and associated performance information outlined in the Quality Assurance Plan (QAP), and establishes regular performance monitoring, reporting, and action on contractual performance commitments.  By monitoring specific project activities and tracking appropriate performance metrics, our quality control function will detect trends and identify cause-and-effect relationships.  The several paragraphs below talk to our company quality assurance policy and outline our quality assurance, quality planning, quality control, and our risk management and mitigation techniques, and our quality assurance metrics process and our quality audit approach.

The RHarvey Group’s Company Quality Assurance Policy reads as follows:

"It is the policy of the RHarvey Group to maintain a program of quality assurance that ensures all RHarvey Group products and services meet or exceed the expectations of our customers. It is also RHarvey Group policy to maintain a process of constant improvement that is accomplished through diligent follow-up on customer input, employee suggestions, internal and external audits and through management review of the quality system."

This Quality Policy has the absolute and unqualified commitment of the RHarvey Group’s management team and responsibility is delegated to all our employees who ensure that the quality policy and techniques discussed below are understood, implemented and maintained at all levels within the company.

Quality Assurance (QA) Techniques

Our Quality Assurance (QA) Techniques includes auditing of processes for completeness, compatibility, usability and compliance. The high-level elements of our Quality Control plan are Enterprise Quality Management Analysis, and Performance Assessment Tools, which include Reviews and Audits that monitor compliance and provide early detection of defects; Root-cause analysis; and Continuous process improvement. Specific activities that occur include:

Providing access by the Government for reviews to all work areas, records, and data used in the performance of the contracted services within one workday

Identifying non-conformances and dealing with them appropriately, as outlined in detail in our basic contract.

Monitoring project results, including rework, to identify opportunities to prevent or avoid future mistakes and tie in activities with a continuous process improvement process.

Regularly evaluating overall project performance against contract requirements

Reviewing and tailoring organizational standards adopted for the contract.

Plan to include identification of resources and timelines in scheduling to conduct Peer Reviews.

Technical Reviews and Audits, and the identification of standards relevant to the effort.

Tracking and monitoring early risk indicators.

Quality Planning Techniques

Effective planning and control on any project, reduces the likelihood of problems occurring and normally results in the completion of project objectives within budget and on schedule. In addition, planning provides foresight to identify arising problems therefore providing time for corrective action. Our Quality Planning includes:

Establishing a common understanding with our customers of the support services and deliverable requirements that will be addressed by the RHarvey Group and priorities for the management and execution of concurrent tasks across functional areas.

Establishing reasonable, process compliant plans for performing the services and producing project deliverables. These plans will be the foundation for tracking and oversight.

Exercising Quality Assurance (QA) and Quality Control (QC) to provide the Program Manager with appropriate visibility into the services and deliverables provided.

Establishing measurement plans and processes to track technical performance, project cost, subcontractor management, scheduled deliverables, and overall responsiveness.

Complying with established review processes to maintain the integrity of project deliverables through review for accuracy, completeness, and quality prior to delivery.

Quality Control Techniques

For each Task, the RHavey Group will assign a qualified and knowledgeable Program Manager who will establish and oversee accomplishment of quality policy and objectives, quality responsibilities, conduct management reviews, and ensure continual communications. Each Program Manager will be responsible for developing a quality Assurance process for the production and review of all deliverables, conduct annual customer surveys, quarterly internal audits, process and product measurements, control of nonconforming product, analysis of data, and implementation of corrective and preventive actions as needed.

Risk Management and Mitigation Techniques

The RHarvey group follows an established risk management process. Our approach to risk management and mitigation implements best practices in a continuous, forward-looking manner.  Risks are identified, analyzed, prioritized, contingencies planned, and monitored through closure.  Early and aggressive detection of risk is important, as it is typically easier, less costly, and less disruptive to make changes early on in the life cycle, rather than revise or modify project elements at the middle or end of the developmental cycle.

Quality Assurance Metrics

As part of the RHarvey Group’s project metric process, projects will adhere to the measurement requirements as outlined below. The QA team will work with the Program Management and technical support staff to identify any additional indicators and their associated measures (Metrics) that are needed to control performance and predict future status of processes used to produce products and services.  The metrics will be used to help determine when and where a problem is occurring and what type of impact it will have on the product or service. The metrics will be used to base decisions concerning the selection of best practices to implement in the project.
Metrics to monitor the effectiveness of QA processes and procedures may include:

Number of QA process audits conducted

Number of QA work product audits conducted

Number of corrective action requests (non-conformance items) identified

Status of corrective action requests (non-conformance items) identified

Customer satisfaction levels relating to product and service quality

Quality Audit Approach

In order to measure compliance to the QMP and QAM, quality audits will be scheduled prior to or will coincide with each Quarterly Program Review (QPR) with results presented to our customers. Any noncompliance issues identified during the audit will be documented and detailed as part of an audit report. Corrective action requests will be issued and follow up activities including the verification of proper implementation and effectiveness of corrective action activities. Data provided by the audit process will serve as valuable input to the process improvement function.