Quality Control -- Mold, Manage, and Maintain the Effort

1.Capability to manage the effort: We will use an integrated TO management approach that drives task planning, staffing, organizing, directing, conducting, producing, monitoring, and reporting for each TO and contract-wide programs to ensure effectiveness and on-time and on-budget completion. The TO Project Managers will manage the TOs and using our TPM will ensure that they are executed on time and within budget. The TO Project Managers will regularly report the status of their projects to the Program Manager, who will be accountable and responsible for our performance on the entire Seaport-e program.

Our proven staffing methodology would be used to staff each TO. Given a large pool of our collective internal resources (employees), and past experience in supporting various NAVSEA Warfare Centers, we have the ability to staff each TO very quickly. Our subcontractors will be treated as an integral part of the team and will be involved in the staffing process. Once staffed, each TO team member would be required to fill their detailed online time sheets and provide regular progress and status reports to the TO Project Manager.

We will aim to build a good working relationship with the NAVSEA personnel. Communication, both formal and informal, with the designated Government Project Managers and Contracting Officers will be continually established. Regular status reports and status meetings will be conducted with the aim of identifying and resolving all issues in a timely manner. Our QC Manager and Contract Specialist will support the program without any cost to the Government. The QC Manager will use our TPM system to monitor and continually conduct internal Quality Audits on various TO teams. A detailed QC Plan will be drawn before the start of the project and will be continually adhered to. We will integrate the proposed quality assurance (QA) function with day-to-day quality control (QC).

We will develop a Risk Management Plan upfront, and identify top ten project risks based on our collective experience. The TO Project Managers will continually monitor and alleviate these risks. The Program Manager will meet on a quarterly basis with the ordering agency stakeholders to review our performance against contract requirements and performance metrics, identify areas for improvement, assess overall contract performance, and address any contract issues or risks. The Program Manager will have the authority to commit company resources, as needed, to support the execution of the contract. Finally, subcontractors are considered an integral part of our team, report to the TO Project Manager and are held to the same standards of performance as ABC employees. They are also required to regularly fill our time sheets and their performance is monitored in exactly the same manner as our employees.  Any issues with the subcontractor performance are resolved with the subcontractor employee, and if need be with the subcontractor PM.

1a. Ability to manage change to preserve stability and maintain technical expertise in the workforce: We will develop a change management plan as a part of the Program Management Plan, which will include detailed impact analysis along with the resources required to transition in a smooth manner. Additional resources and experts will be added as required. A detailed log will be maintained which will record who authorized the change and when; who managed the change and when; what issues arose, and how were they resolved.

ABC has an attrition rate that is lower than 1% over past 5 years. We strive hard to ensure that our employees are not only compensated better than the industry levels; but also are treated with respect and fairness by the management. We have established human resources policies to ensure that both the work environment and the technical environment enhance employee retention. Our employees work with the most modern technologies in a healthy and positively competitive workplace environment. Our competitive compensation and benefits make us a small business of choice to work for. Employee recognition and rewards, education assistance, financial assistance, and 401(k) matches are a few of the many programs available to our employees.

We will continue to maintain a high retention rate using a combination of competitive compensation, comprehensive health benefits, family-friendly programs, and a profit-sharing/savings plan. We provide both company and skill-improvement programs that keep employees current with the rapid change in technology and give them the opportunity to grow professionally and personally.  We offer a variety of programs designed to improve leadership, responsiveness, teamwork, productivity improvement, and effective program execution. This further keeps the employee morale high, and mitigates attrition rate.

1b. Ability to monitor and maximize quality: As detailed earlier, our PMO will house a full-time QC Manager at no cost to the Government. The QC Manager along with other technical specialists (included on a TO requirement basis) will constitute a Quality Control Team (QCT). The QCT will continually monitor the performance against the Acceptance Criteria, conduct internal audits continually, identify the root causes of variances from the Acceptance Criteria and work with the concerned TO team members to eradicate them. As most of the TOs on the Seaport-e contracts will be Performance Based, we will use our above detailed, and proven EVM system (that in turn uses our TPM, detailed earlier in this section) to monitor and maximize quality.

1c. Approach to guarantee responsiveness to and cooperation with customers: We consider Seaport-e Contract as a very important tool for corporate growth. Our senior corporate management is committed to the success of our Seaport-e Contract. This is proven by the fact that our Program Manager will directly report to the company President. The idea is to ensure maximum customer satisfaction and prompt resolution of issues as they are identified. Our approach to guaranteed responsiveness and cooperation with the customers involves pro-active and continual communication with the customer and the establishment of a sincere and prompt feedback mechanism. Our Program Manager will regularly attend status meetings with the customers and will be responsible for pushing the right buttons to ensure timely responsiveness and cooperation by all team members with the customer. Open and proactive communication and a solid feedback mechanism will enable us to identify the issues and resolve them promptly.

1d. Approach to problem resolution: Through our established communication processes and procedures (particularly the TO management and review process) and open communications with the customer, we will identify and resolve issues quickly at the lowest organizational level possible. Once a problem is identified, we will work with the Government to identify the root cause of the problem and will discuss ways to eradicate the problem. Should the problem remain unresolved at the lowest level, it will be escalated to the Program Manager and eventually to the company President. Our Senior Management’s hands-on approach will prove to be very beneficial in quick resolution of even contentious issues.

1e.  Flow down of incentives to your team partners: We consider our team partners as absolutely essential for our success and therefore will aim to promptly pass on the incentives to them to ensure the success of this program. ABC has had an excellent long standing working relationship with each of our subcontractors. Our teams have worked together on several Federal Government contracts. Further, we have already executed the teaming agreements with our partners clearly identifying the role of each partner. ABC will promptly pay our partners’ invoices within 30 days of receipt, as mutually agreed upon in our agreement.

2.  Furthermore, We fully understand the requirements of the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps as laid out in the RFP, and have carefully selected Namtra Business Solutions, Inc. (NBS) - a SBA certified 8(a) and Woman-Owned Small Business - as our subcontractor on the Seaport Enhanced contract. NBS is a SEI CMMI Level 3 and ISO 9001:2008 certified company and is a current Seaport “Enhanced” contractor with contracts in Zones 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

ABC has strong and relevant past performance in several Functional Areas delineated in the Seaport-e RFP. Team ABC collectively has a resource base of 175 highly skilled and experienced staff in all seven (7) Zones, most of who hold active ‘Top Secret’ Security Clearance. ABC and our subcontractors are well-established, financially stable, profitable, and responsible companies that have a track record of implementing projects on time and within budget resulting in tangible cost savings to our customers.