Quality

The aim of quality assurance is to ensure that high standards within the company are achieved through the accomplishment of objectives, the identification and correction of deficiencies and the sharing of best practices.

A method of quality assurance is through Information Systems Examination Board (ISEB) accreditation. The aim of the Information Systems Examination Board (ISEB) is to raise the standard of competence and performance of those working in IT. It does this by offering a range of relevant industry recognised qualifications. The Contractor is currently working towards accreditation by ISEB as a Practitioner in Test Management.

Systematic drafting of a quality plan for each project

Managing a project is a difficult and a complex task. There are many competing demands at work: clients are under pressure to reduce the cost of developing a project and at the same time their requirements are more and more demanding and complex; such pressure can easily draw attention and resources away from important elements such as the project quality assurance. A quality plan is drafted for each project in accordance with the client. During the kick-off meeting, the company and the client set out the project quality action plan to follow in order to achieve the project objectives.

The project quality action plan is intended to outline a range of potential measures aimed at improving the project quality. This project quality action plan might be drafted by the client and Integrated Domain Logistics or derived from an existing client’s quality assurance handbook.

Nature of systematic quality actions

The project quality action plan defines how adherence to the standards, as selected jointly between Integrated Domain Logistics and the clients, will be monitored. Its contents list is a checklist for activities that have to be carried out to the quality of the final product. The systematic quality actions that are deemed relevant to achieve a higher level of quality are:

• Follow and survey through a study the client quality assurance handbook in order to identify the procedures and codes of good practices,

• Derive methods from the client quality assurance handbook to be applied for the specific project,

• Formulate a framework of ‘questions’ to be used for the self-assessment. These questions must cover all activities, which are fundamental to assuring quality,

• Assign the appropriate managerial structure that will monitor and control the quality of the software,

• Analyze the documentation plan that has been defined in the project quality action plan,

• Monitor the execution of problem reporting and corrective action as described in the project quality action plan, and examine trends in problem occurrence,

• Check that appropriate tools, techniques and methods as describe in the quality plan are available and appropriate skills and resources are available.

Quality assurance before sale

Quality assurance before sale groups together the following activities:

• Technical answer to the bid – Once a decision to select the bid has been taken, a team is formed with the responsibility to (1) understand and analyse the bid’s needs, elaborate a solution and write a technical answer that takes into account all the bid’s requirements.

• Presentation of the proposal – The presentation aims at promoting, refining and clarifying the proposal.

Quality assurance for contract establishment

If the client selected our technical proposal for the bid, Integrated Domain Logistics verifies that the contract requirements comply with the proposed bid. To review the contract, Integrated Domain Logistics relies on technical and legal competences.

Quality assurance for the management of modifications

The management of modifications includes the evolution of the requirements and the management of non-conformance. The procedure of the management of modifications provides a systematic approach to the identification and segregation of the modification, the recording, reporting and the definition and the implementation of corrective and remedial actions.

Quality assurance for the management of configuration

The main objective of configuration management is to document and provide full visibility of the products present configuration and on the status of achievement of its physical and functional requirements. Another objective is that everyone working on the project at any time in its life cycle uses correct and accurate documentation.

The configuration management process comprises the following integrated activities:

• Configuration identification,

• Configuration control,

• Configuration status accounting,

• Configuration verification.

Quality assurance for the management of documents

The management of documents provides the process, necessary disciples and procedures to identify and control all project documentation, deliverables to the customer, to ensure timely development, compliance with required format and content, proper distribution, approval, storage and protection from unauthorized change.