Our primary mechanism for quality assurance is the individual performing the work. By assigning appropriately qualified and dedicated personnel to each task and by making sure task performers understand the work requirements, schedules and resource constraints, we minimize the overhead required to assure delivery of quality services and products.

To ensure that management input and oversight, when needed, is informed and responsive, we have populated our management organization with experienced managers who are also subject matter experts in the requirements areas. These are working managers whose backgrounds include knowledge and qualifications in relevant subject matter areas as well as extensive experience defining, preparing, reviewing, and presenting products under similar requirements. They are well versed in the metrics of quality as applied to the types of professional support services being procured by NAVSEA. They are committed to our team philosophy of quality assurance which depends on (1) a thorough understanding of the task requirements and resources needed; (2) open communication with the customers to clarify issues and garner feedback on performance; and (3) timely adjustments to processes when beneficial to overall quality.

This approach, which we have employed successfully on previous contracts, provides for a sustained high level of performance with minimum management burden, while ensuring adequate and timely insertion of management personnel as needed.

EG&G is an ISO 9002 registered contractor. This means that EG&G's business practices conform to universal standards of excellence developed by the International Organization of Standards and administered in the U.S. by the American National Standards Institute. ISO 9002 registration is recognized worldwide as the benchmark standard for quality systems management and implementations. EG&G received a perfect "no non-conformities" rating by the independent pre-qualifying audit team during the certification process. Registration in ISO 9002 provides independent assurance that EG&G's products and services meet customers' quality and performance expectations. EG&G expects that application of ISO 9002 standards will continue to promote and produce cost reductions, productivity improvements and a "total quality" culture.

Although our primary approach to quality management emphasizes "fix before failure", we recognize that unexpected situations can arise. Our staff will apply a systematic investigation process to determine root causes of any problems. We will develop the required process improvements to correct the immediate problem and will also provide required long-term solutions. To monitor performance and obtain feedback, the Contract Manager will continually evaluate performance based on technical approach, timeliness and continuous process improvements. The individual functional experts will participate in analyzing new requirements, making recommendations to correct deficiencies and discussing new capabilities to satisfy emerging requirements.

Our system of delegation of authority to team members, coupled with the assurance of absolute prime contractor accountability to the government provides NAVSEA the direct access to task managers and technical personnel needed to guarantee responsiveness and cooperation. This system has succeeded in other projects by giving the customer both access to task managers/performers and instant recourse to prime contractor senior leadership involvement should the need arise.

The flexibility inherent in our matrix support organization -- with horizontal integration of like services across similar programs and vertical integration of functional support within each specific program -- optimizes our response time to customer needs in a cooperative fashion. The Program Manager assigned for complete accountability to each program supported, through the matrixed organization ensures a continual focus on unique program goals and required tasking while leveraging functional support for specific task execution. The individual Program Managers have the responsibility to manage all tasking assigned to their functional team through daily customer interaction and they are empowered to adjust workforce assignments should the need occur. On current NAVSEA integrated professional services contracts, EG&G has implemented an electronic "task slip" system to measure our performance in responding to specific customer tasking on a real-time basis. Using this automated database, we can establish and report metrics to the customer, ensuring that our responsiveness is superior in all facets of our professional services support.

Our overall approach to project and task management and our focus on quality, as described above, are expected to resolve problems before they become evident to the customer and thereby mitigate the need for urgent customer action. Should the customer deem it necessary to take action regarding a problem, our approach is to maintain a flexible but clear set of options for the customer to interact with our management team. Through designated points of contact, identified in our task management organization, the customer has the flexibility to communicate directly at any level of our organization, depending on the exigencies of the case, without going through a hierarchy of managers. Each Navy task manager will know how to contact any representative of our team if problems arise and will be able to exercise considerable discretion regarding the entry point for initial contact. Resolution will include internal communication within the management team to ensure the attention of the appropriate management level (given resource accountability, lines of authority, etc.) and to document and communicate lessons learned to be shared across the team as appropriate.

EG&G is an industry leader in the application of System Engineering principles to all aspects and life-cycle phases of systems and platforms. The fundamental principles of system engineering -- disciplined requirements definition and management, interface management, system analysis, risk management -- are equally applicable to problem resolution in delivery of professional services to NAVSEA. These principles are illustrated in the Systems Engineering Flowchart.



The system engineering approach that the EG&G Team has demonstrated through consistently successful professional services support to NAVSEA will be applied under future tasking resulting from task delivery under this contract. This type of discipline in managing customer requirements facilitates high quality, low risk, and cost-effective program support.