GST's Quality Assurance (QA) Plan establishes and defines the Corporate QA policies, processes, and responsibilities to be used in accomplishing tasks under the Seaport Enhanced contract. The plan is used by GST to provide engineering technical, and programmatic services to the Government and includes task orders of different sizes and complexity in support of a wide range of government customers. Because of the diversity of clients and the variety in the scopes of work, each task performed under the Seaport Enhanced contract will have its own stand-alone QA Plan as part of the project plan for the task. This plan delineates general standards to ensure our services and products meet GST corporate requirements of the Seaport Enhanced contract and will be tailored to ensure compliance with individual Seaport task orders executed by the company. 

GST has an independently registered ISO 9001:2000 Quality Management System (ISO QMS), which serves as a tangible indication of our ability to implement, monitor, and maximize quality. Consistent both with the requirements of our ISO QMS, and DoD guidance on performance-based contracting, the Zone Project Managers (ZPMs) in coordination with our Program Manager will develop project/task plans to plan, organize, and control each task order. 
All Seaport Enhanced task orders will have a QA Plan (Task QA Plan). GST's Task QA Plans translate corporate approved QA policies and procedures into specific guidance and procedures to enable program personnel to deliver quality services and products in a consistent manner on a task-by -task basis. Task QA Plans serve as a reference point for QA audits and reviews. For each GST Seaport Enhanced Task Order, a Task QA Plan will be developed and will specify at a minimum: 

• A clear, understandable description of the task(s) 
• Guidance for periodic task QA reviews 
• Task Order technical and QA requirements 
• Project responsibilities and reporting chains 
• Schedules and milestones 
• Clearly defined Task Order deliverables and/or performance metrics, including customer-approved acceptance criteria
• Unique project requirements [special tools, software, methodologies, procedures, etc.] specified in the Task Order and/or Task Proposal 

GST's QA plan offers our customers demonstrated success through a dual focus on evaluating tasks in process, while implementing continuous process improvements. This plan may be modified as necessary to accommodate any expanded task areas of the Seaport-e contract. Prior to contract start, GST Managers will meet with customer representatives to determine the Standards for Acceptance for each task described in the respective SOW. 

Our QA plan encompasses procedures for inspecting, validating, and evaluating all work and instituting corrective actions where necessary according to a company-established methodology. The Government will be able to inspect and evaluate our program in terms of the progress and performance of tasks based on the metrics we have established. Where feasible and cost effective, our plan supports using mature, repeatable processes that result in marked defect reduction as well as significant schedule and cost savings.