General Support Services

ASR provides cost effective quality assurance, technical engineers, information technology professional personnel worldwide.
Company Strengths:

ISO 9001:2000 certified company

Assessed at SEI CMMI Level 3

Uncompromising ethical standards

Attractive rate structure

State-of-the-art communication systems

A worldwide network of qualified & experienced, technicians / Quality Assurance professionals

Support Services provided include:

Supplier Development

Program and Project Management

Acquisition and Contract Management

Manufacturing Management

Sub-contract Management

Business Process Reengineering/Improvement

ISO-9000, QS-9000, AS-9000

Call Center Support/Customer Interaction Center Support

Adjudication Support Services

Supplier Development
ASR understands that the Supplier Development Process is a shared quest for ever-increasing product and service quality. From the outset of this process, the objective is to provide customers with the highest quality products and services, on time, and at competitive prices.

ASR's Supplier Development Process provides successful, quality focused relationships with suppliers, which are key to efficient and effective manufacturing operations. Supplier Development is, incorporating business objectives and performance with quality tools. Supplier development follows key strategies, promotes cooperation and collaboration with suppliers, and uses problem resolution methods to deal with issues. Key strategic initiatives include:

Working with the customer to identify / develop the suppliers as per the customer requirements for the product

Work with the customer / supplier on product development

Develop an effective buying process
Evaluation of supplier performance against a robust system of measures
The total number of suppliers of a particular commodity can be reduced to meet the customer business objectives
A philosophy of "win-win" is embraced with suppliers that support the customer delivery process. This facilitates the process of suppliers providing superior products who in turn are rewarded with more business
Supplier Quality Improvement

ASR's Supplier Development Process includes:

Optimized utilization of resources
Objective knowledge of supplier performance in critical areas such as quality, technology, responsiveness, and cost
Pre-award surveys and audits of supplier facilities worldwide that enhance supply chain management effectiveness
Production surveillance and process reviews at supplier facilities worldwide
Resident Quality Assurance representatives
Review of process documentation and acceptance of test procedures
Development of quality systems and acceptance procedures that conform to customer requirements
Establishing inspection sampling levels
Establishing calibration tool standards and control procedures
Monitoring of shipping activities to insure quality of packaging, marking and handling
Development and control of corrective action plans and their implementation
Audits of quality, manufacturing and testing plans
Strive for continuous improvement of all processes
Systems Test and Evaluation
Software Test and Quality Assurance

ASR provides in-depth hands-on representation at supplier and sub-tier supplier facilities to support the customer needs during all stages of the product lifecycle:

Management
Design and Development
Test and Evaluation
Manufacturing capability
Production Basics

Verifying that a complete first article inspection to the latest drawing issue has been performed and is available
Verifying inspection equipment calibration status
Verifying final inspection records comply with specification requirements;
Verifying that no changes have been made to production processes
Verifying final inspection is independent of ‘In Process’ Gauging and Inspection
Management of non-conformance product and processes
Checking handling procedures;
Labeling and documentation control;
Component packaging I consignment / identification / verification.

Supplier Quality Improvement

ASR customers having embraced the ASR Quality Improvement process will realize the benefits of improved supplier performance; reduced costs, fewer quality issues, improved on-time delivery, and reduced cycle times. This results in corresponding improvements in performance with respect to customers, strengthening a competitive position. The suppliers who travel along this path also reap benefits from the ASR Quality Improvement process - improved product and service quality, greater cost competitiveness, and higher customer satisfaction.

What is Quality Improvement?

The need for an effective supplier management process is crucial. As with all critical procedures, once a successful process is achieved, it must be documented and meticulously followed. The same holds true for critical commodity management.

When performed well, ASR Quality Improvement:

Establishes aligned goals, indicators and metrics
Enables benchmarking of supplier performance
Identifies potential quality issues before they impact the customer
Drives suppliers’ agility and ability to provide leading edge product and services
Matures critical customer-supplier relationships
Encourages collaborative agreements, team problem resolution, two-way continuous learning
Provides data to support supplier recognition.

What Can Suppliers Gain From Quality Improvement?

Quality improvements should be considered and applied to all suppliers, as appropriate for the customer’s business needs. Quality is for everyone, but Quality Improvement is not. The ASR Quality Improvement process should be considered only for those suppliers critical to a business unit needs. A realistic assessment of the supplier resources required to implement ASR Quality Improvement, to manage its success, and to sustain the ASR Quality Improvement process should be carefully conducted before engaging a supplier in the ASR Quality Improvement process.

Ensuring Successful Quality Improvement Deployment

For the supplier to realize the full potential of ASR Quality Improvement, the process needs to be imbedded in the supplier’s own processes. The ASR Quality Improvement process will not result in continuous quality improvement if the supplier sees it as a separate quality program.

Supplier manager’s skills are key to the success of any Quality Improvement deployment. Supplier development and monitoring should be initiated as soon as the supplier begins work for the customer, just as one would develop a new employee. This development and monitoring must be planned and calculated to support the business objectives.

A structured, repeatable process is necessary to guide improvements. A process is a set of ordered steps that can be performed approximately the same way each time an activity takes place. Tasks that are undertaken without a process will be performed differently each time, resulting in reduced efficiency and quality. A well defined, closed-loop process will naturally become more efficient over time and result in higher quality. Quality Improvement is a process.
Step 1: Set Requirements and Expectations

In order to reach outstanding supplier quality, a complete description of expectations and requirements is needed.

Step 2: Achieve Alignment

The objective of step two is for the ASR Quality Improvement team to sit face-to-face with a corresponding supplier team to negotiate and align on each and every requirement and expectation. Any differences must be reconciled or dropped.

Step 3: Assess Supplier's Current Performance Level

There are several ways to determine a supplier’s current level of performance. One is to use data that has already been collected. The most obvious of these data sources is the Supplier Report Card (SRC), but other indicators (whether or not included in the SRC) can be used as well. Examples include supplier yield, manufacturing line performance, procurement spec requirements, etc.

Step 4: Improving Performance

In the first three steps of the Quality Improvement cycle, the ASR Quality Improvement team defines its expectations, aligns those expectations with the Supplier Quality Improvement team and assesses the supplier’s current processes. Using this data the combined Quality Improvement team develops an Quality Improvement plan that defines projects for the supplier and the gaps that exist between current supplier performance and the aligned goals set in step 2.

The Quality Improvement Plan

The Supplier Quality Improvement Plan is the document that describes the supplier’s quality improvement initiatives for the coming year. As is the case with the entire ASR Quality Improvement process, the Quality Improvement Plan is not to be populated with customer-specific quality initiatives, but rather with strategies linked to the supplier's overall quality program, for which the entire customer base will benefit.

Timing

The Quality Improvement Plan is typically drafted on an annual basis, with the deliverables and indicators defined such that the Plan can be reviewed and scored on a quarterly basis. The SRC (Suppler report Card) and SBR programs have usually been implemented with the supplier before this time.

Measurement/Scoring

In the most successful cases, Supplier management reviews performance against plan at the SBR meetings and makes necessary adjustments to resources and/or priorities to insure success in completing the Plan, while continuing to meet the business objectives of both companies.

Ownership

The Quality Improvement Plan should represent the supplier's planned quality initiatives meant to improve their overall service level to their customers, not just those embarked upon as a result of doing business with a particular customer. For this reason, the supplier owns the Quality Improvement Plan and consults with the customer as necessary. Each item on the Plan should have a supplier owner identified, and that owner should be an expert in the process at hand.

Step 5: Statistical and Analytical Techniques

The supplier must develop a system that documents responsibilities, involvement, plans and criteria for implementing statistical and analytical methods. The supplier is responsible for ensuring that tooling, equipment, and processes used to demonstrate the capability to consistently produce quality parts with minimum variation.

Step 6: Internal Supplier Product / Process Audits

The supplier should have an internal process for the routine audit of product and process quality. The supplier should perform internal quality audits scheduled on a regular basis to set a benchmark for continuous improvement of their quality systems and to demonstrate compliance with existing elements of their manual. The results of the internal audits should be distributed to the appropriate personnel; action plans should be developed, tracked and documented for all areas that are found to be in noncompliance.

Calibration
Gage R&R
Notification and Control of Nonconforming Material
Preventative/Corrective Action and Problem Resolution
Supplier Controlled Shipping Procedures
Manufacturing Capabilities
Tooling Management
Control of Special Process
Inventory Age Control
Product Change Notification
Drawing and Engineering Change Control

Systems Test and Evaluation

The purpose of Systems Test and Evaluation is to determine that the system products and services satisfy the customer’s specified requirements. ASR supports the customer’s Test & Evaluation requirements by providing the following services:

Material Testing
First Article Testing
Demonstration and Validation
System Safety
System Quality Assurance
Initial Operation Testing (IOT’s) and
Operational Testing and Evaluation (OT&E’s).

Material Testing: This includes physical testing, chemical analysis, structural analysis and microscopy analysis.

Physical testing is performed to determine the failure mechanisms: compression, tension, load, modulus, torsion, abrasion, coefficient of friction, etc. Polymers can be tested for tension, elasticity, and deformation. Steel is examined for tension and torsion limits.

Chemical Analysis provides information about the major or trace elemental components of a sample. It can be obtained using state-of-the-art WDXRF (wavelength-dispersive X-ray fluorescence), ICP (inductively-coupled plasma), and AA (atomic absorption) spectrometers. Chemical compounds can be identified by GC/MS (gas chromatography/mass spectrometry).

Structural Analysis is carried out by techniques such as - XRD (X-ray diffraction). It is often used for qualitative and quantitative crystalline phase analysis. Other techniques used for phase and structural analysis include NIR (near-infrared) and FTIR (Fourier transform infrared) spectroscopy; thin film analysis by XRD; and electron diffraction with TEM (transmission electron microscopy). µ-FTIR is capable of obtaining an infrared absorption spectrum from a region as small as 15µm, which makes identification of small unknown particles a much easier task.

Microscopy Analysis includes OM (optical microscopy), SEM (scanning electron microscopy) and TEM (transmission electron microscopy). They are used for various types of micro structural analysis and phase identification. For example, particles can be identified first with PLM (polarized light microscopy) and then further verified by SEM/EDX (energy-dispersive X-ray analysis); the grain- and microstructure of alloys can be determined with TEM; the defects in semiconductors can be checked by cross-section TEM analysis; the quality of wire-bonding can be examined by SEM inspection; and the thickness of a thin film deposition can be characterized using a scanning AES (Auger electron spectrometer) to generate a depth profile.

First Article Testing: ASR can support the customer’s first-article tests which include those tests required in the technical data package for quality-assurance purposes to qualify a new manufacturer or procurements from a previous source out of production for an extended period (usually 1 year) and to produce assemblies, components, or repair parts in accordance with requirements of the technical data package.

Environmental Testing: Environmental testing is the methodology for determining the effects of natural and induced environments on equipment being procured, such as humidity, pressure, temperature, dust, RFI, shock, vibration and salt spray. The objects of the testing is to: discover deficiencies and defects and verify corrective actions; and to assess equipment suitability for the environmental condition anticipated throughout the system life-cycle. ASR engineering personnel have extensive experience in environmental testing in both the laboratory and in the field.

System Safety: System safety is an engineering approach to risk assessment and management. It systematically identifies potential hazards associated with hardware or software failure or human error. The system safety process creates appropriate and effective controls for identifying and minimizing the danger to life, health and property. ASR personnel understand hardware/software and the System Safety concepts that apply to facilities and projects during design, development, prototyping, manufacturing, testing, operations, and maintenance. ASR’s life-cycle system safety analysis is based upon the broad experience gained working similar activities on engineering activities for government agencies.

Quality Assurance: ASR has staff personnel who have been certified as Black-belts and are knowledgeable in the application of Total Quality Management (TQM) concept. A goal of supplier quality assurance is to continuously improve the quality, reduce the time to produce each product, and reduce the part rejection rate. ASR approaches this goal by recommending programs such as Statistical Process Control (SPC) with corrective action plans to prevent past discrepancies, analysis of the design for ease of manufacture and increase the process yield. We also identify manufacturing bottlenecks, improve production flow, and observe set-ups to reduce time. This is all done within the Total Quality Management (TQM) concept. This is a concept actively promulgated, which states that “Quality” is a responsibility of everyone in an organization. In simple terms, it means doing “right things right” and it is the responsibility of everyone, and every department, not only those actively involved in quality assurance.

TQM is a tool that is an efficient and effective method for meeting customer requirements. The TQM methodology consists of a structured procedure that starts with the qualities desired by the customer (the objective), identifies the functions required to provide these products or services, and identifies the means for deploying the available resources to best provide these products and/or services.
Initial Operation Testing (IOT): The IOT is a field test, under realistic operational conditions, of a production or production-representative system (or key component of such a system) to determine its operational effectiveness and operational suitability for use by typical users. ASR personnel can support the IOT environment is as operationally realistic as possible and includes use of realistic threats. Typical users operate and maintain the system under conditions simulating actual deployment conditions.

Operational Testing and Evaluation (OT&E): Test and evaluation should begin as soon as possible in the life cycle management of a system. ASR can perform a thorough front-end analysis that includes review of previous testing and analysis. The careful development and updating of the test and evaluation master plan/ coordinated test program should provide the ordering agency evaluator with a means of obtaining test data for the evaluator's issues without requiring duplicative testing.

Software Testing and Quality Assurance

The ASR SW Testing and Quality Assurance Program ensures that our customers get the best quality software that functions efficiently to meet all customer requirements.

ASR SW QA Plan

Allocates the responsibility and authority within the company.

Describes specific procedures, methods and work instructions to reduce, eliminate and present quality deficiencies.

Describes and schedules the testing, inspection and audits to be performed at various stages.

Describes documentation to provide inspection and test status and show conformance of product to the requirements.

Provides for corrective action procedures to investigate the cause of nonconforming product.

Implementation of Software Quality Assurance

Assure software documentation to be correct, consistent and complies with contract format and content requirements.

Conform to approved software plans and implementing procedures.

The requirement development process should ensure that all system requirements are allocated to software or hardware and are expressed in testable terms.

The design process should ensure that design standards are followed, all software requirements are allocated to software functions, and results of design walkthroughs or inspection are incorporated into designs.

The implementation process should ensure that applicable coding standards are being followed and results of code walkthroughs or inspections are incorporated into the code.

The verification and validation process should ensure test procedures are adhered to, test results meet acceptance criteria and are documented, and non-conformances are documented and resolved in accordance with approved procedures.

Ensure that software is verified and validated prior to use. Ensure that changes to verified software are re-tested prior to use to assure that the software maintains its functionality.

Ensure that verified software is uniquely identified and placed under configuration management control.

Ensure that the physical software media is properly stored to prevent damage, loss, or unauthorized modifications.

Program and Project Management and Control:

Support customer programs utilizing project management procedures to ensure effective use of management tools in planning, scheduling, organizing and controlling all program activities

Responsible for formulating program policy

Interface between Corporate Executive Management and Program

Technical/Administrative coordination of operating organizations

Coordination and implementation of controls to attain goals in the area of cost and schedule

Acquisition and Contract Management:

Provide guidance in planning for system/product procurement

Provide liaison between Company and vendors/subcontracts

Assist in negotiations of acquisition contracts

Coordinate timely delivery of vendors products/services

Responsible for compliance with provisions of contract

Prepare/review all terms and conditions

Administration of contract changes

Manufacturing Management:

Provide advanced planning/scheduling

Coordinate Industrial Engineering

Monitor production control/expediting

Coordinate resource allocation

Direct the manufacturing effort

Coordinate with other organizational functions

Producibility

Manufacturing Technologies

Reliability, Maintainability, Testability, Manufacturability

Sub-contract Management:

Provide support to make-buy decisions

Responsible for sub-contract administration

Statusing sub-contract performance and budget

Coordinate supplier surveillance

Business Process Reengineering/Improvement:

Support Total Quality Management (TQM) programs

Develop strategy for change

Conceptualize process design

Develop detailed process redesigns

Develop implementation strategy

Develop process performance metrics

Identify Information Technology needs

Management of change

Workflow Management systems

Statistical analysis techniques

ISO 9000, QS-9000, AS-9100, TL-9000, ISO 14000:

Evaluation and Analysis

Design of system, management, procedures and documentation

Risk assessment and economic analysis

Documented Quality System

Call Center Support/Customer Interaction Center Support:
A call center traditionally is defined as a physical location with telecom links for incoming and outgoing calls and trained agents to carry out customer relation management and support activities.

In today's digital world, a call center is evolved into an Integrated Customer Interaction Center (ICIC). It leverages convergence technologies of the WWW, computer, telephony and CRM software to provide one stop gateway for customer interaction with the focus on meeting customer’¡Çs need and expectation of easy access to information, personalized services and fast response and resolution of problems in a seamless and integrated manner. Well trained and responsive Customer Service Representatives (CSR) are an important element of the ICIC. The voice and data pathways are linked through Computer Telephony Integration (CTI). An ICIC may be networked with other ICICs, corporate computer networks including mainframes, minicomputers and LANs. In brief the ICIC greatly expands the Richness and the Reach of the interactions with customer by leveraging technology and networking.

An ICIC collects valuable data about the customers which is used to further strengthen the customer relationship. It acts as the central point for all forms of communication channels for interaction between the organization and its customers - phone call, mail, web site clicks, email, fax, chat, instant messaging, mobile devices, on-line support etc.

ASR believes that the following three customer needs in the customer service and support environment must be met by an Integrated Customer Interaction Center:

Easy access to support and service through whatever the channel of communication that the customers choose (fax, phone, mobile devices, internet, on-line chat, mail, IVR responses, voice mail.

Personalized response and individualized level of service. The customers expect the agents to know them and their histories / previous interactions and use this information in all the subsequent interaction. CSRs need more than the traditional look-up access to legacy / mainframe terminals. Contact Management System and Case Management System allow access to multiple levels of customer information and customer interaction histories. These systems also allow management of cases along different channels of communication: emails, letters, fax, phone, web.

Fast response to customer questions / queries and prompt resolution of their problems / issues. Typically the ICIC agent has access to FAQs, generalized scripts, suggested email responses, and Knowledge Management Tool along with clearly enunciated Escalation Policies enable the CSRs to respond promptly, consistently and correctly to the customer issues. These solutions can be accessed with automatically or manually and need to be updated periodically so that all the information and data is current. The Knowledge Management Tool includes corporate knowledge base, third party knowledge base, Natural Language Searching, frequent tissues listing.

ASR's ICIC support capabilities are designed to achieve the following:

Create e-relationships so that the customer deals, as far practical and possible, with the same CSR or the CSR team regardless of the communication channel used by the customer to make the contact.

Maintain a consistent interaction and customer handling procedures so that customers get high-quality consistent responses regardless of the CSR involved in providing the service.

Management of customers and cases across channels so that no separate logs / databases are required for fax, email, mail etc. The multi channel interaction history is maintained in one system.

Put the customer at the center of the interaction by creating a seamless, flexible, integrated, strategically aligned mix of customer interaction channels.

Monitor and optimize cross-channel activity to allocate resource on as required basis.

Centralization of the customer interaction to improve the operations, reduce costs and yet provide standardized, streamlined, effective and uniform service to the customers.

Focus on work-force management, quality monitoring, queue management, demand forecasting and agent performance analytics. So that the CSRs are productive and the focus on providing high-quality customer service is never diluted.

Provide Program Managers with the operational and performance data and information to monitor the effectiveness of the ICIC using Report Writing and Generation Tools and multi-Dimensional Analysis.

ASR's ICIC support capabilities to meet the above objectives, is based on use of technology, training and processes and procedures. ASR also uses queuing and mathematical models for demand forecasting and planning, and operating skills-based routing of calls within the ICIC so that the most skilled CSR gets a specific customer's call.

An important aspect of an ICIC is the Universal Queue which receives an inbound event from any channel (Fax Server, Chat Server, Web Server, PBX, CTI, Email Server) and routes to the appropriate CSR based on some pre-defined rules.

The telephone is the most ubiquitous and historically established from of interaction with the ICIC. Incoming calls are routed by the Automatic Call Distributor (ACD). It manages incoming calls and routes them based on the number called and an associated database of call handling instructions to determine the best available CSR to handle the incoming call. To make this determination other parameters are considered to determine why the customer is calling. IVR, caller ID, ANI (Automatic Number Identification) is used to make this determination. Coupling of ACD with CTI enables the display of the relevant data on the CSR's terminal.

ASR's support capabilities include expertise to develop and populate the Knowledge Management Tools with automated processes rather than manual data entries.

Similarly a range of automation support capabilities are available in classifying and sorting emails as part of the Email Response Management Systems / Solutions (ERMS) so that using keywords the email responses can be can be generated delivery of messages prioritized. Similarly web based forms can be utilized for ERMS classification, sorting and routing rather than free-form email messaging.

ASR has extensive capabilities in developing and deploying search engine capabilities on knowledge databases

ASR has the capabilities to deploy Contact and Case Management System using Portal Desktops which can provide views of customer information from a number of different dimensions simultaneously. The Task Manager tool allows the user the ability to manage and prioritize tasks and the associated activities.

Adjudication Support Services
The adjudication process seeks reasonable assurance that persons granted access to classified information, are persons:
"...whose personal and professional history affirmatively indicates loyalty to the United States, strength of character, trustworthiness, honesty, reliability, discretion, and sound judgment, as well as freedom from conflicting allegiances and potential for coercion, and willingness and ability to abide by regulations governing the use, handling, and protection of classified information." Source: Executive Order 12968, Access to Classified Information, dated August 4, 1995.
Adjudicative decisions are made by applying broad principles to a set of specific circumstances. Executive Order 12968 and the Adjudicative Guidelines establish the principles. The background resources in the Adjudicative Guidelines reference provide information to assist in the identification and evaluation of behaviors and circumstances that are relevant to security decisions.
The Adjudicative Guidelines reference does not provide specific thresholds which tell the adjudicator when to approve or disapprove access to classified information in any individual case. The complexity of human behavior severely limits any ability to codify such thresholds for making adjudicative decisions. The adjudicator in each case must make what is called a whole-person judgment based on all available information about an individual's reliability and trustworthiness. This includes favorable information, unfavorable information, circumstances that may mitigate the unfavorable information, and circumstances that may affect the credibility of the information.
The adjudicator is not just a reviewer and reporter of information. The adjudicator is an analyst who forms his or her conclusions and recommendations based on a review of all available information. Executive Order 12968 states that an adjudicative determination "is a discretionary security decision based on judgments by appropriately trained adjudicative personnel."
The adjudicator must make a conscientious effort to be sufficiently knowledgeable about the individual, to evaluate the facts fairly and objectively, to seek counsel from knowledgeable supervisors and specialists as appropriate, and to make a balanced and succinct presentation of all relevant factors in each case.
ASR’s Adjudication Services professionals are available to support activities such as:

Review of background investigations and case files

Personnel adjudication review

Preparation of accurate synopses and reports, status, reviews

Recommendations with supporting rationale to facilitate the decision to grant, deny, or revoke security clearance or eligibility to occupy sensitive positions or access to Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI)