OHI’s Navy SeaPort-e Contract Quality Assurance

Approach to Mold, Manage, and Maintain Effective Project Management

OHI defines, establishes, and monitors project performance, budgets, and schedules for end-to-end performance; selecting actions and milestones and review criteria consistent with the client’s needs and requirements. In order to maintain effective Project Management across the company, OHI has developed standard Project Management and Quality Assurance/Quality Control (QA/QC) procedures and system development plans and methodologies.

When a Task Order is awarded, the Program Management Team will finalize the technical, schedule, cost, and performance baselines. The Project Manager will use these baselines for proper oversight of program activities, and, the Task Order Manager will uses these baselines as well as program requirements documentation to focus on day-to-day management activities for program execution. The task will be executed while managing risk, performance, and deliverables. The Task Manager will be empowered to execute the task order. This approach reduces duplication of work, builds ownership, and ensures that all expectations are met. The Task Manager will track and manage cost, schedule, and performance through near real-time visibility into critical metrics baselines, plans, and tools. This will allow the Task Manager to invoke an active, on-going, proactive risk analysis and mitigation process for anything that surfaces and requires formal tracking, and follow to resolution any issues flagged as critical.

As an added quality measure, Task Managers will be required to participate in monthly project status meetings with the appropriate quality control (QC) teams. The QC teams will be made up of senior level experts within the particular functional area (e.g., engineering, design, information technology, explosives). The QC team will review the status of the project including deliverables, schedules, and budget and provides support to the Task Manager including assigning additional company resources as needed to the project. Such monthly quality reviews have contributed to the success of OHI’s projects to date and have resulted in follow-on work from several clients.

Management Processes To Control Work and Ensure Repeatable Results

To ensure quality repeatable results, OHI builds quality into the work management process for every project. In addition to the monthly Sr. QC project reviews discussed above, our QC process also includes regularly scheduled peer reviews for every project undertaken and written quality review comments recorded in the project file to document all project decisions. Before final delivery of all deliverables, a final technical and editorial review of each work product is made to ensure that the standard set at the beginning of the project has been achieved and the goals have been reached. The review is conducted independently and the results recorded in the project record.

Approach to Preserve Stability and Maintain Technical Workforce Expertise

OHI believes its workforce is the most valuable asset of the company. Our primary goal is to maintain a highly technical workforce in this highly competitive marketplace. One method of maintaining a highly technical workforce is through a very generous employee benefits package that greatly reduces turn-over. Due in part to our generous benefits package, OHI has experienced an attrition rate that is lower than 1% over past 5 years.

We strive hard to ensure that our employees are not only compensated better than the industry levels; but also are treated with respect and fairness by the management. We have established human resources policies to ensure that both the work environment and the technical environment enhance employee retention. Our employees work with the most modern technologies in a healthy and positively competitive environment. Our competitive compensation and benefits make us a small business of choice for employees. Employee recognition and rewards, education assistance, and financial assistance are a few of the many programs available to our employees.

We will continue to maintain a high retention rate using a combination of competitive compensation, comprehensive health benefits, family-friendly programs, and a profit-sharing/savings plan. We provide both company and skill-improvement programs that keep employees current with the rapid change in technology and give them the opportunity to grow professionally and personally. OHI plans to continue to offer a variety of programs designed to improve leadership, responsiveness, teamwork, productivity improvement, and effective program execution. This further keeps the employee morale high, and mitigates attrition rate.

Approach to Monitor and Maximize Quality

OHI embraces a corporate quality structure that is applied to all program and task activities. To successfully accomplish the goals and requirements defined by a task order, a customized QA/QC Plan is developed to serve as the foundation for conducting evaluations in all program areas, including but not limited to management, operations, financial and administrative.

As detailed earlier, our Project Manager and QC Manager along with other technical specialists (as needed) will constitute a Quality Control Team (QCT). The QCT will continually monitor the performance against the acceptance criteria, conduct internal audits continually, identify the root causes of variances from the acceptance criteria and work with the concerned team members to eradicate such variances.

Our QA/QC Plan initiatives will be constantly updated to include better ways of doing business more efficiently and effectively, and implementing new plans/procedures to carry out identified improvements/enhancements.

Approach to Guarantee Responsiveness To and Cooperation with Customers

OHI considers the Seaport-e Contract as a very important tool for corporate growth, and our senior corporate management is committed to its success. Our approach to guaranteed responsiveness and cooperation with the customers involves proactive and continual communication with customers and the establishment of a sincere and prompt feedback mechanism. OHI Team’s approach is to foster two-way communication with our customers through all phases of a task, from engaging clients to understanding requirements and preparing proposals, to program execution. Having the customer on-board with every step not only builds strong, efficient teaming, but also identifies risk concerns and program constraints. Open and proactive communication and a solid feedback mechanism will enable us to identify the issues and resolve them promptly.

To ensure responsiveness, our Program Manager will regularly attend status meetings and/or conference calls with customers and will be responsible for “pushing the right buttons” to ensure timely responsiveness and cooperation by all team members with the customer.

Problem Resolution Approach

OHI believes that the best solution to Problem Resolution is Problem Avoidance, achievable through the management practices detailed above. During the execution of a project, should a problem arise, OHI’s approach to problem resolution will be straight forward and simple: identify the problem; analyze the problem and discern the problem source(s); develop alternative solutions; analyze each solution using a “value lens” recommend a solution through decision analysis; implement approved/coordinated solution; and follow-up and monitor solution implementation.

Despite the brevity of this problem resolution approach, our tailored risk management process proactively identifies and mitigates risks prior to them being manifested as issues or problems. Each of our processes provides a continual improvement imperative. Our primary programmatic processes (Planning, Assessment, and Control): 1) proactively addresses risk; 2) assess and identify potential problems; and 3) provide mitigation plans and corrective action(s) as appropriate.

Through our established communication processes and procedures (particularly the TO management and review process) and open communications with the customer, we will identify and resolve issues quickly at the lowest organizational level possible. Once a problem is identified, we will work with the Government to identify the root cause of the problem and will discuss ways to eradicate the problem. Should the problem remain unresolved at the lowest level, it will be escalated to the Program Manager and Sr. Management for quick resolution.