Quality Assurance Tools for the Engaged Program Manager
Abstract
An important and integral part of any procurement is the quality assurance provisioning. Specify inadequate quality assurance, and you may end up with products that cannot be used by the military customer. Overspecify the quality assurance provisions, and you waste money and may alienate the vendor and the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) personnel, who are usually assigned quality oversight. Careful consideration should be expended to evaluate all the tools available at the time of contract planning to arrive at the level that is appropriate. Not all tools are appropriate for every application. This isn't the right time to check all the blocks under the quality assurance heading for your solicitation plan. There is great risk in assuming that some tools are in place because "it's a government contract." Although the government might eventually be made whole by a vendor that delivered unacceptable product, years will pass before you as the program manager will ever hear the news. There is also risk in assuming that a vendor's reputation based on past performance is sufficient to satisfy quality assurance needs. Procurement history will show that this is often the premise for a poor decision. Vendor name recognition or large size does not always correspond to high quality for every product. Following are the tools available to the program manager, along with a description of each and the author's rating of the tool and its cost benefit: Site Survey, Post-Award Conferences, Pre-Award Conferences, Customer Feedback, Quality Assurance Level of Instruction (QALI), Third-Party Verification Inspections, First Article Testing, and Certifications by a Third Party (e.g., Certificate of Quality Compliance, or COQC).
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 01, 2011
- Accession Number
- ADA564459
Entities
People
- Mark Gindele
Organizations
- Defense Contract Management Agency