NASA Johnson Space Center: Total quality partnership

The development of and benefits realized from a joint NASA, support contractor continuous improvement process at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) is traced. The joint effort described is the Safety, Reliability, and Quality Assurance Directorate relationship with its three support contractors which began in early 1990. The Continuous Improvement effort started in early 1990 with an initiative to document and simplify numerous engineering change evaluation processes. This effort quickly grew in scope and intensity to include process improvement teams, improvement methodologies, awareness, and training. By early 1991, the support contractor had teams in place and functioning, program goals established and a cultural change effort underway. In mid-l991 it became apparent that a major redirection was needed to counter a growing sense of frustration and dissatisfaction from teams and managers. Sources of frustration were isolated to insufficient joint participation on teams, and to a poorly defined vision. Over the next year, the effort was transformed to a truly joint process. The presentation covers the steps taken to define vision, values, goals, and priorities and to form a joint Steering Committee and joint process improvement teams. The most recent assessment against the President's award criteria is presented as a summary of progress. Small, but important improvement results have already demonstrated the value of the joint effort.