Markant Quality Assurance Plan

Markant’s Quality Assurance Plan (QAP) describes the standards, processes and procedures used to support the consistent delivery of high-quality, professional products and services provided in the support of the SOW. The quality assurance (QA) process is concerned with establishing the authority of the QA function, QA standards, procedures, monitoring, and evaluation processes to determine quality in relation to established standards. QA provides standards against which the quality of the product/service being provided and the progress toward completion can be measured. Quality assurance activities concentrate on the prevention of problems through the continuous improvement of processes. Markant will begin each contract year with a kick off meeting within the first 30 days of award to discuss QA goals and objectives.

Quality Control Program

Markant has implemented a quality control system to ensure that all projects meet or exceed client specifications. Our quality control system ensures that our projects will proceed with minimal unforeseen problems and eliminates the costly trial and error approaches used by companies who do not integrate quality control into their overall project development from start to finish.

A summary of Markant’s quality control system or procedures, internal audit checklists, version control, project documentation, design checklists and quality control software, equipment and methodologies used for clients are as follows.

Assign an Markant technical lead and project manager to particular task
Initial Meeting with client to gain a thorough understanding of expectations
Initial question and answer with technical liaison, if available
Initial site survey of physical equipment and architecture
Develop a full plan of action, taking into consideration the customer’s Quality Assurance Surveillance Plan and site survey
Assign appropriate engineers and technicians to task
Provide weekly status reports to client to inform them of progress
Monthly meeting with client to give a detailed status report and give plan of action for future
Wrap up project when completed
Provide all documentation, drawings and pertinent information to client about project

Quality Assurance Team Responsibilities:

Develop and maintain the Quality Assurance Plan
Conduct audits and reviews
Ensure work products adhere to the appropriate standard
Develop audit and review procedures for SOW activities
Ensure the QA processes and procedures adequately control project quality
Ensure the QA activities accurately measure the product, service and process quality
Review and approve specified deliverables for release to IT Infrastructure & Scientific Research
Promptly report results of audits to appropriate project management.
Report unresolved noncompliant items to technical monitor/senior management
Maintain an on-going dialogue with the technical monitor and IT Infrastructure & Scientific Research support staff
Collect and analyze metrics produced from the results of the QA process
Recommend changes in procedures to improve processes

Quality Assurance Procedures

Different methods and techniques will be utilized depending on the specific quality assurance activity. The techniques, tools, and procedures that will be used are as follows:

Reviews - An independent evaluation of an activity or process to assess compliance with the project plan; or to examine products or processes against quality factors through the use of checklists, interviews, and meetings.
Audits - An independent examination of a work product or process to determine compliance with specifications, standards, contractual agreements, or other pre-established criteria.
Evaluations - An evaluation activity that examines products/services to determine compliance to customer requirements.
Process Improvement - A process improvement program designed to reduce the error rate in a process.

Quality Assurance Review Process

Reviews are important to assess compliance with a project plan. Specifically, the review process examines products or services from the context of quality factors. Examples of quality factors include:

Correctness - The extent to which a product/service satisfies the customer requirements and the stated objectives.
Timeliness - The product/service is provided when needed to the customer.
Reliability - The extent to which a product functions accurately or service is provided on a consistent basis.
Productivity - The amount of resources to correctly produce the product or deliver the service, including the relationship between the amounts of time needed to accomplish work and the effort expended.

Quality Assurance Audit Process

The QA team is responsible for conducting product or service and process audits. The purpose of audits is to identify deviations in process performance, identify noncompliance items that cannot be resolved at the technical support or project management level, to validate process improvement/corrective action achievements, and to provide relevant reports to all management levels.

A product audit is an independent examination of work product(s) to assess compliance with specifications, standards, customer requirements, or other criteria. Product audits are used to verify that the product was evaluated before it was delivered to the customer, that it was evaluated against applicable standards, procedures, or other requirements, that deviations are identified, documented, and tracked to closure and to verify corrections.

A process audit is a systematic and independent examination, to determine whether quality activities and related results comply with planned arrangements. And whether these arrangements are implemented effectively and are suitable to achieve IT Infrastructure & Scientific Research objectives.

Quality Assurance Evaluation Process

Evaluations examine the activities used to develop/deliver products and services, ultimately determining if the activity is fulfilling requirements. The QA function establishes criteria for an evaluation, verifies the process has been performed, and collects the metrics to describe the actual results of those activities.

Quality Assurance Process Improvements

The QA team is responsible for process improvement. Process improvement is successful when an effective process emerges or evolves that can be characterized as: practiced, documented, enforced, trained, measured, and improvable. A corrective action plan must be developed when a deficiency in the process is detected. Corrective action should prevent the problem from reoccurring.

Quality Assurance Plan and Security Control

As a DoD support provider, Markant takes security very seriously. Our team has established and implemented procedures to ensure both physical and information security safety and compliance. The security Quality Assurance Plan is maintained by the facility FSO, with issues of non compliance immediately escalated to the appropriate customer POC.

All keys received by Markant or any subcontractor are logged by number and maintained in the corporate safe.
Markant conducts random key audits to ensure employees maintain their issued key
Markant conducts random security audits to ensure lock combinations or security information are not revealed to unauthorized individuals.
Security audits also check to ensure unauthorized staff are not escorted into areas of restricted access.
Key loss or duplication – in order to ensure employees treat security with respect at all times, Markant consulting asks that employees execute agreements prior to hire that acknowledges the employee will be responsible for the re-keying of all locks affected due to loss or non compliance with security policy.
Any violations of security protocol are immediately reported to the Contracting Officer and customer so the severity of a breach can be diagnosed with remediation to occur immediately.
Deficiency of adherence to security policy is grounds for dismissal from Markant and the project and are strictly reported against an individual’s security clearance.