Quality Assurance
Zia has an established formal Quality Management System (QMS) at the corporate level as well as contract specific QMS programs and procedures.
These procedures were developed and meet the quality assurance requirements for Zia’s other large federal contracts and commercial clients whose technical work and quality assurance requirements are comparable to SeaPort-e (Zia prime contract numbers : W9124Q-04-D-0012, W9124Q-07-D-0801, and W9113M-05-C-0003 (subcontractor to Northrop Grumman).
Our QMS is developed around conformance to ISO 9001 principles, processes, and requirements . Zia is currently in the process of pursuing ISO 9001 registration and has ISO 9001certified auditor(s) on our staff.
In addition, Zia is formally enrolled in the Quality New Mexico program in pursuit of our ISO compliance. Zia has also assisted BPB Industries (Z00-006), a large commercial manufacturing company, to develop their compliance programs around ISO 9001 compliance standards and requirements.
Zia’s Quality Management System is based on the principle of delivering professional services that completely meet the objectives established by our clients. To achieve this, our process incorporates the following approach:
- Identifying the work flows and how they are carried out by each group within our organization and within any subcontractor’s organization.
- Describing the order in which work is carried out and how each task interacts with other work.
- Dividing the overall scope of work into discrete defined tasks and pathways to clearly define how the work is to be accomplished.
- Providing the staff with the equipment, training and tools necessary to accomplish each task.
- Assigning task leaders to manage, monitor, and measure each task against the predefined workflow to insure that the work is proceeding as planned, on schedule, and within budget.
- Identifying potential problem areas and making appropriate changes quickly to achieve the objectives of the project.
- Documenting non conformances and correcting deliverable processes to preclude recurrence .
Approval Authority
Zia’s QMS incorporates a formal approval process before any product is delivered to our clients. The policy includes requirements that:
- All documents or other deliverables be formally approved by a designated approval authority before delivery to the client
- Documents or other deliverables requiring revision or correction are re-reviewed, revised, and re-approved as required.
Each of Zia’s client tasks has a principal of the firm who serves as Principal-in-Charge of the project. The Principal-in-Charge is typically a registered professional engineer (PE) with a minimum 20 years of professional experience. The Principal-in-Charge is the reviewing authority and is responsible for reviewing all deliverables and insuring that they meet the client’s objectives and minimize client risk before approving them for release.
Team Quality Management
Zia requires the same standard of quality management for work performed by its SeaPort-e team members and requires that they have in place equivalent procedures for performing work for Zia and its clients.
Additionally, Zia’s team mate, DDL OMNI, has an established ISO 9001:2000 Registered Quality Management System (QMS) which has been approved by NAVSEA 04XQ and meets the requirements of NAVSEA TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION 9090-310c and NAVSEA STANDARD ITEM 009-04/01 April 1999.