DRA's Quality Assurance (QA) Program is applicable to all current and projected contracts, including our GSA Schedules and Seaport-e. Our plan is based upon the desire to improve our performance through an assessment and feedback process involving our managers, technical staff, and customers, and integration of lessons learned from other organizations. Feedback from these multiple sources is particularly effective in preventing, identifying, and correcting problems.

DRA identifies, documents, and evaluates potential or actual quality issues. The process we follow includes: identifying the condition and evaluating its significance; analyzing the problem and determining its cause; reporting the problem and planned corrective actions; implementing and documenting the remedial actions; preventing recurrence in the same or similar operations; and verifying, documenting, and determining the effectiveness of the corrective/preventative actions.

The QA Program has been used successfully by DRA over the past decade. DRA has developed, documented, and implemented QA management systems that resulted in the delivery of safe and reliable services that met or exceeded our customers' requirements, needs, and expectations.

The DRA approach includes the methodologies for planning, performing, and assessing the adequacy of the support provided. While tailored, our approaches are in full compliance with established standards and performance criteria. DRA's QA Program emphasizes that our management is responsible to provide the leadership and commitment to achieve quality throughout the contract. Therefore, our management staff retains the primary responsibility and accountability for the scope and implementation of the QA management system.

Continuous improvement deals with customer satisfaction, and DRA's aim is that every stage of every process entirely meets or exceeds customer expectations. Because perceptions are extremely difficult to measure, DRA establishes and maintains a continual feedback system with our customers.

While it is desirable to have customer acceptance test data, DRA believes it is equally important to continually assess our performance in terms of attitude, service diligence, and timeliness.

Being alert to customer remarks is one way to obtain feedback. Customer surveys are another method, and DRA staff is experienced in designing and conducting customer survey tools and analysis of the survey data. As the need arises, we are prepared to perform such surveys. However, a more direct and effective approach is personal interaction that allows for free and unstructured feedback. Each customer comment will be fully considered.