AMCORP understands that several factors may arise that will challenge our team’s ability to maintain our high quality professional support. The first such factor is a sudden, unplanned increase in tasking. In these cases, AMCORP relies on its résumé database to identify and hire personnel with the necessary knowledge, skills, and abilities to support the customer. The résumé database has been populated over many years with high quality individuals who are ready to join the AMCORP team. Our team members also have a cache of personnel ready to support emergent tasking.
Another factor to consider is employee attrition. This can be especially challenging when older, more experienced personnel depart. AMCORP matches all personnel that directly support the government with an alternate. The alternate supports the senior member and is involved in all aspects of customer support. Our staffing plan is aimed at phasing in the alternate to replace the senior member within 1 year, so loss of senior members is a planned event on our team. Based on our staffing approach, and our past use of that approach, AMCORP does not expect employee attrition to be a factor.
Technical expertise is maintained through several methods. Our most effective method is the senior member-to-alternate working relationship. Since there generally is not specific training for “professional support”, the best teachers are those who are currently performing services at high levels. When opportunities arise, employees are sent to courses that directly contribute to increasing their knowledge and skills in the professional support arena. We have sent employees to courses on contracts management, 7-habits, dispute resolution, and change management. We also attend LEAN events and actual courses taught at Navy schools. For those employees wishing to further their general education, AMCORP pays for college tuition, as long as the curriculum is related to their professional tasking.
Ability to monitor and maximize quality. AMCORP has survived for so many years as a small business because our highest priority is meeting or exceeding all customer requirements and expectations for quality. We emphasize continuous quality improvement concepts and processes as part of our corporate culture. Our system of reviews with customers and team members emphasizes AMCORP’s ability to provide high quality and best value to our customers. Our quality program involves three critical components:
- Assigning the correct personnel to each task.
- Conducting the reviews necessary to ensure correctness and accuracy of products.
- Measuring quality.
AMCORP provides quality products and services by determining the customer’s requirements and then assigning the skilled personnel to accomplish the resulting tasks. For those personnel that are unknown to the customer, we will provide résumés and even arrange for the customer to meet them so they may ensure there is compatibility.
AMCORP implements a variety of team and internal review processes. These review processes guarantee the overall technical quality, accuracy, and credibility of our work. The lowest level of reviews is the peer review. All work and deliverables are reviewed by other team members to ensure format and content are correct. These reviews are aimed at preventing the customer from having to make multiple revisions to products delivered. The next level of review is the weekly team meeting, where we discuss products to be delivered and establish a schedule to develop, review and submit products. The highest level of review is the corporate review, where AMCORP and team members meet quarterly to assess the quality of services and discuss resources required to maintain quality standards. AMCORP also provides informal customer surveys and conducts weekly customer queries (either in person or via email) to assess “how we are doing” as far as technical support and quality of deliverables.
Quality will be measured for all products and services that warrant measurement. AMCORP, with concurrence from the customer, will establish quality attributes and determine an acceptable quality level for each attribute. We will implement a quality monitoring process that will measure performance. In cases where performance is not in compliance with our acceptable quality levels, we will institute process improvement methods and processes to determine the cause, implement corrective action, and continue to monitor the corrective action to verify its effectiveness.
AMCORP’s TOM implements the quality program. The fact that the Task Order Manager is also the President ensures customers and team members that the AMCORP quality program has the highest visibility within the corporation.