TABLE OF CONTENTS In previous chapters we have identified ways to collect and organize information pertaining to the work that must be done to verify that the product does, in fact, satisfy its requirements. This information has been organized on a development program into a series of documents, ideally, within the context of a relational database.
This chapter covers the overall management of the item qualification verification process using the integrated verification plan (IVP), integrated verification data report (IVDR), and an integrated verification management report (IVMR) introduced in earlier chapters. The results of all of the work grouped together under qualification are focused on a major audit at the downstream end of the qualification process, called by Department of Defense (DoD) the functional configuration audit (FCA). At this audit, the customer is presented with the evidence accumulated through the qualification program to prove that the design satisfies the requirements in what would now be called in DoD the performance specifications. In past years these specifications would have been called the development specifications or the Part I specifications, but MIL-STD-961D changed the terms for DoD in 1995, and this pattern was continued in MIL-STD-961E.
Given that we have captured the correct data and organized it well for implementation, the remaining problem is one of doing the planned work and management of that work. Management involves bringing the right resources to bear on the problems we have defined in accordance with the schedule, also predefined, within the context of limited...
