NASA Quality Assurance Assessments George Turnbull 16 Feb 2005 15:40 EST
I would like to collect information as to how other universities have been responding to NASA Quality Assurance Assessments. The purpose of the assessments is "to evaluate critical processes and identify potential risks to NASA programs". Unfortunately, the measure is the application of AS9100 (the industry standard for aerospace manufacturing), even though all the research contracts reviewed do not invoke it (which is why NASA is very careful to call it an "assessment", and not an audit). The result is a finding that the university is non-conforming to the stringent requirements of AS9100, and thus assumedly not qualified to receive NASA contracts involving hardware (which in our case means one-of-a-kind experiments for space craft). The fact that the university performed in complete conformance to contract requirements and to the full satisfaction of the sponsor is ignored in the process. Obviously, the strongest response would have been to deny access for the assessments (while still welcoming audits), but that wasn't considered to be appropriately responsive, and NASA was very coy about revealing the parameters until the process was under way. Are there any universities that rebuffed the request to perform such an assessment? For the universities that entertained the assessments--how did you respond to the (dismal) findings? There is concern here that we not appear unresponsive to quality assurance issues; however, if the application of AS9100 to contracts that did not include it is unchallenged, the negative findings will be seen as essentially correct. Are there institutions that challenged the process as patently incorrect? The implementation of a quality assurance program that conforms to AS9100 would require a considerable investment in time and money that probably couldn't be recovered through overhead, and would therefore have to either be charged directly to the contract (which is typically for a single instrument package) or borne by the institution. Has any university chosen these alternatives? Thank you for your help. George Turnbull Compliance Administrator University of Maryland Office of Research, Administration, and Advancement Lee Building, Room 3103 College Park, MD 20742 301-405-6278 Fax 301-314-9569 ====================================================================== Instructions on how to use the RESADM-L Mailing List, including subscription information and a web-searchable archive, are available via our web site at http://www.hrinet.org (click on "Listserv Lists") ======================================================================