Quality Assurance

New Mexico State University's Physical Science Laboratory (NMSU/PSL) has a proven track record of commitment to quality assurance. This commitment has always been and will continue to be an inherent part of our operation. We define quality assurance as "providing products and services that assure satisfaction of our customers' stated and implied requirements." Our approach to achievement of quality performance on each of our contracts involves establishment and implementation of a quality management system that is tailored to our customers' technical, environment, and regulatory and legal requirements. Oversight of key components and processes is monitored by quality inspectors who work with PSL technical management to ensure consistent delivery of outstanding products and services to our customers. Because each customer defines requirements for its own services, our approach is always customer (and, by implication, project) dependent and flexible to blend with customer culture and objectives. Our experiences with customers of varying requirement levels indicate that we have been successful in our attempts to implement project-by-project quality management.

Management benefits from valuable insight and information on which to measure performance, draw conclusions, make decisions and take actions to effectively manage contract resources and contract performance. Employees benefit from increased job satisfaction based on: a clear understanding of their roles and responsibilities; improved internal communications; suitable and well-maintained equipment; adequate training to do their job; and committed top management support. Customers benefit from a trained, motivated workforce focused on achieving 100% customer satisfaction on all contract deliverables.

NMSU/PSL has worked as both prime and subcontractor on a wide variety of critical NASA and Department of Defense projects. The requirements and environments of systems being provided under our direct contracts have involved ground-based telemetry and command/control systems. Unmanned facilities have included instrumented platforms, high altitude balloons, aircraft (manned and unmanned), rockets, missiles, and spacecraft (both Shuttle and satellite). When participating in technical contracts as a subcontractor many of our prime contractor teammates have been large, ISO-certified aerospace companies who have required conformance to their own corporate quality systems. This history has given us extensive experience with comprehensive, project-specific ISO compliant quality management systems.

Points of Contact for Customer Satisfaction