The company culture at APT promotes our commitment to delivering high quality products to our customers. We have proven internal policies and procedures that guide the execution of our analytical work and production of customer deliverables.
Most of our analytical work depends on the use of credible computer models. APT software development activities employ the Capability Maturity Model (CMM), which has been widely accepted in Government and Industry. The CMM approach provides APT with the confidence that our analytical models satisfy all technical requirements and are valid tools for use in an analytical study.
APT has oriented our corporate quality policies and procedures to a process-centric quality approach. We are doing this with the Capability Maturity Model Integrated (CMMI) approach that will be applied to all technical and business processes in the company. CMMI provides guidance for improving an organization’s processes and the ability to manage the development, acquisition, and maintenance of products and services. Key aspects of CMMI include:
- A process improvement model that provides a set of best practices addressing productivity, performance, costs and stakeholder satisfaction.
- A consistent and enduring framework that accommodates existing processes as well as new efforts.
- A means to facilitate organization-wide improvements by focusing on problems occurring at all levels of an organization.
This will allow APT to define and manage our processes that meet our business goals. It will provide a framework that integrates our engineering analysis, software development, quality assurance, IT, and other important functions. The CMMI approach includes mapping and documenting all key engineering and business processes used by the company. This activity is very beneficial in allowing us to understand all activities and resources used to perform our technical and administrative functions.
ISO Certification
On July 12, 2010 APT obtained ISO 9001:2008 certification. This was APT’s first attempt to obtain this certification, and the maturity of the processes was indicated by the fact that there were no adverse findings causing the auditor to delay certification or APT to revise their processes. The systems at APT supporting this service have been developed over the last two decades. Processes that were audited include Human Resources, Administration (e.g., Security), Purchasing, Contracting, Accounting, Publications, and Product Development.
APT’s ISO 9001:2015 certification includes the unique statement, “A-P-T Research, Inc., has established and maintains a quality management system for the delivery of products and engineering services for safety, quality, mission assurance, testing, analysis, hardware prototyping and training on a global basis to Government and industrial organizations.”