Home > SeaPort-e

Reflecting our commitment to quality, Plexus has a full-time corporate Quality Assurance (QA) Manager who verifies that quality certifications are current and periodically audited. This emphasis on quality management significantly lowers Plexus’s and the Government’s project execution risk, and fosters client deliverables that are completed on time, within cost, and of the highest quality.

At the time of project initiation, a Plexus Project Manager develops a Project Management Plan (PMP) that addresses all relevant planning issues. This core plan includes several primary and secondary Plans including Risk Management, Staffing, QA, Communication, and Configuration Management. A Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), which is the cornerstone of our solution, is also developed. The WBS forms the basis for cost and schedule, planning, organization, collection, tracking, and project control. The PMP also provides the framework for assigning responsibilities, and facilitates monitoring of schedules and deliverables. Applying Earned Value Management (EVM) principles, Plexus develops a WBS for each SeaPort-e project. Plexus uses EVM to measure performance and control costs. The resulting earned value analysis is used for internal reporting, and reporting progress to clients.

The Quality Assurance Plan defines the high-level quality assurance project steps including documentation and sign-off of requirements, development of test plans and test cases, conducting of peer reviews, unit testing, execution of test plans, reporting and tracking of defects, defect resolution, and customer acceptance testing. The measures used by our quality assurance process will depend in part on the type of project, but will generally include metrics such as number of defects found (expressed as a percentage of test cases passed), number of escaped defects (defects that escaped all internal quality processes and were ultimately found by the customer), cost performance index, schedule performance index, and customer satisfaction (if available).

The measures for defects are recorded and tracked using Plexus's Jira defect tracking system. Cost performance index and schedule performance index, which are two important EVM metrics, are measured and reported using Microsoft Project Professional. Customer satisfaction is measured, when possible, using a periodic customer satisfaction survey.

All work performed at Plexus is based on CMMI Level 3 processes. We continually upgrade our project management and development processes according to CMMI recommendations and practices. Plexus’s QA Program is ISO 9001:2015-certified. Our QA methodology establishes project delivery processes that are integrated with each of our control systems: Accounting, Strategy Management, Budgeting, Personnel, and Customer Relations Management. Each deliverable (including those done by our subcontractors) is reviewed by the Program Manager, Task Manager, Technical Team Leaders, and QA Manager to attain the highest degree of quality.