LSI's Quality Assurance (QA) program is an integral part of our company-wide Quality Management system and includes our team composition, quality processes, and Quality Assurance personnel.

LSI's Program Manager for the SeaPort contract is responsible for the quality of all products developed by the Prime Contractor or any subcontractor. All Quality Assurance and Quality Control requirements and procedures are communicated to all subcontractors through policy, standards, and training. The Program Manager actively supports the Quality Management system. All new employees are trained in ISO 9001:2000 Quality Management System, our Quality Assurance processes, and the specific quality responsibilities for their individual role as a member of a product development team.

Quality discussions are periodically held at all levels to ensure that all program participants understand their roles and responsibilities. The Program Manager continually reviews quality feedback and reports (e.g., internal review results and customer comments) with the Project Managers to identify potential quality issues before they become quality problems. In these cases, the product development team performs a root cause analysis and identifies the proper corrective action to solve the problem permanently.




LSI's quality processes are designed to ensure our customers receive a 100% compliant product the first time, every time. These processes encompass all performance for our customers and all delivered products. LSI's QA processes include:

• Employee training
• Written Work Instructions for all product development team member roles
• Emphasis on individual responsibility for quality
• Internal incremental product review procedures
• Final product review prior to customer delivery
• Customer feedback review
• Written responses to all customer review comments

Each time a product is to be delivered to the customer, whether for incremental review or final delivery, the product undergoes a Quality Assurance review. The final product review team is made up of similarly experienced product development team members who have not worked on the specific product under review but are engaged in developing similar products under the same contract or delivery order. Each reviewer is intimately familiar with the requirements of the task and requires no additional training to perform the QA function. Review comments are tracked and all comments must be corrected, reviewed, tested, and verified by the Project Manager before the product is released to the customer.

LSI's validation process requires all data to be checked for technical accuracy against approved source data, against operating equipment and procedures, or against approved tactical doctrine. Software validation is performed by installing and operating the training material on systems identical to equipment used by the Warfighter. The programs being validated are measured against established testing procedures and a validated product operates without error.

All of the LSI Team's quality processes (management, assurance, and control) are applied to all aspects of our performance and all products that we deliver. Our quality philosophy starts at the highest level of management and flows down through our product development teams to the individuals that create the elements incorporated into the product.



Quality Assurance responsibility starts with Senior Management and includes the company Quality Management Representative and the QA team. All are integral parts of every project team no matter what the tasking. QA team personnel include:

• Subject Matter Experts (SME) - provide technical peer reviews of all material
• Instructional Developers - ensure instructional validity, refine reading and grammar, and verify deliverable product consistency
• Instructional Technologists - conduct product testing for playability and compliance with ADL SCORM technical requirements
• Program/Project Managers - provide a final check that all contractual requirements have been met

Additionally, QA team personnel perform the following functions:

• Provide development team training
• Review deliverables throughout the development process
• Evaluate quality metrics and assess trends
• Make recommendations for process improvements
• Report quality issues directly to the Quality Management Representative

LSI's team composition is shown in the Figure, Product Development Team Composition. This organization allows for direct management control of the processes and products while emphasizing the integration of the Quality Assurance team into the overall process.

Product Development Team Composition

LSI's Quality Assurance team is an integral part of our product development process, which ensures that only compliant products are delivered to our customer."

Individual acceptance of responsibility for the quality of the originator's own product is part of our corporate culture. In order to ensure accountability, LSI developed an electronic web-based Courseware Management System (CMS) that provides a history of comments and discrepancies throughout the life of each development product. These comments are evaluated to determine positive and negative trends and to identify areas where training is needed to achieve better quality in the process and product. This data is used for systemic improvement of our processes.

Every deliverable product undergoes a QA review prior to delivery to the external customer for their review. As mentioned earlier, the QA review personnel are part of the QA Team and are made up of development team members who have not worked on the product under review but are engaged in developing similar products under the same contract or Delivery Order. They are intimately familiar with the requirements of the task and require no additional training to perform the QA function. Review comments are entered into the electronic courseware management system and all comments must be corrected and reviewed by the Project Manager before the product is released for customer review.

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