QAS earns NASA recognition for space program insight

ORLANDO, Fla. -

NASA recently awarded Marcus Otero-Cruz, a quality assurance specialist with Defense Contract Management Agency Southeast, a Silver Snoopy Award for his observations and insight that led to improved efficiency and cost savings for America's space program.

Per the award citation, Otero-Cruz observed inefficiencies in how critical fuel-tubing cleaning requirements were flowed from the prime contractor to the tubing manufacturer and tube cleaning suppliers.

"I saw the duplicating efforts that had a negative impact to agency resources," Otero-Cruz said. "I brought it up to the customer and the supplier's leadership and collaborated with them to streamline the process."

The redundancy caused unnecessary labor hours spent among all parties deliberating cleaning methodologies and specifications, which led to multiple last-minute purchase order revisions, inspection delays, re-inspections, and frequently drove overtime requirements to complete complex mandated inspections, according to NASA.

"Eventually, those duplicated efforts were changed, leading to a reduction in waste, saving time and agency resources," Otero-Cruz said. "If I had not stepped out of my normal duties of exercising the delegated efforts, and shared what was observed, risk would have increased, resources would have remained redundant, and duplicating efforts would have continued - potentially causing more delay in the program."

As a QAS, Otero-Cruz said he is trained to conduct a series of process audits and to look and detect potential technical issues via the observation and collection of data.

"Then, we tackle those risk areas to mitigate that same risk from becoming a high risk, preventing failure from occurring," he said.

Otero-Cruz explained that sometimes data reveals an inherit high risk embedded in products and processes, such as in Space Flight applications.

"I decided to be proactive and reached out to key players in the program that weren't part of my normal lines of communication," he said. "I presented the observations and, after some time and many hours spent on the issue, this led to a refinement of the process without compromising risk mitigation."

Thomas Lewis, quality assurance supervisor with DCMA Southeast, identified Otero-Cruz as a highly-skilled professional who served with the DCMA team in Orlando for the better part of 16 years.

"He evolved from the DCMA Keystone Program and, over the years, has been assigned Government Contract Quality Assurance activities at nearly every supplier in the geographic region," Lewis said. "He has gained the knowledge and experience to become one of the most dedicated and reliable quality specialists on our team."

Due to his high level of professionalism and dedication to duty, he was the obvious choice to lead the NASA Support for these re-delegated efforts, Lewis said.

"His ability to work independently with little to no supervision was ideal for this effort and allowed the other personnel on the team to be available for many other surveillance activities," Lewis said. "Overall, he has greatly increased the efficiency of our QA team."

Lewis said he envisions Otero-Cruz mentoring and training several new members of their team.

"This will ensure the valuable insights and knowledge he has obtained will be passed on to others and may free some of his time to further develop his skills and abilities," Lewis said. "I am very pleased to have him as a member of our team and look forward to seeing him lead others down the road to success."

The NASA Silver Snoopy Award, a sterling silver Snoopy lapel pin that has flown in space, is presented to the awardee by an astronaut because it is the astronauts' own award for outstanding performance and is awarded to fewer than one percent of the workforce in any given year, according to NASA.

Public link

Please use the above public link if you want to share this noodl on another website.