International Technical Meet on Quality Assurance


Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) Headquarters organised an International Technical Meet on Quality Assurance during January 24-25, 2018 at Antariksh Bhavan, Bengaluru. The theme of the Meet was “Sustenance of Mission Success through Quality Assurance”. The primary objective of this Meet was to bring together the Quality agencies of various leading space organisations across the globe and discuss about the challenges being faced by Quality and Reliability agencies in the current arena. The Meet facilitated exchange of knowledge and information among the participating space agencies and also suggested innovative approaches to overcome the challenges for sustained mission success.

The Meet was inaugurated by Shri AS Kiran Kumar, Vikram Sarabhai Distinguished Professor. Shri Shekhar Shrivastava, CEO, HAL Bengaluru Complex, delivered the keynote address. They emphasised the need for amalgamating the state-of-the-art technologies with the current Quality Assurance procedures. This takes significance, in the context of ever increasing demand for space-based services. Senior functionaries in the Quality Assurance domain of NASA, ESA, CNES, Arianespace, Boeing and High Reliability Engineering & Component Corporation (HIREC), Japan participated and delivered very interesting and informative talks during the Meet. Directors of ISRO Centres namely, VSSC, ISAC and SDSC also shared their ideas on the innovative approaches for executing the Quality Assurance function for the Launch Vehicle and Spacecraft areas.

Overall, there were eleven talks during this Meet - eight from foreign delegates and three from ISRO officials. About 150 Scientist / Engineers from various ISRO Centres/Units attended and actively participated in the event. The talks enabled the participants to get first-hand information about the Quality practices in vogue at leading space agencies, lessons learned, advanced quality methods like detection to prevention, risk management, virtual qualification procedures, QA process for production phase organisation etc., Interesting case studies were also shared as part of this proceedings. Speakers opined that, all the anomalies are to be treated as “our friends”, and a person who brings out such anomalies should also be rewarded appropriately.

A Panel discussion with “Latest trends of QA aspects in Aerospace” as the theme, was also arranged at the end of the Meet on the second day. Dr. B N Suresh, Honorary Distinguished Professor, ISRO, Chaired the panel discussion. Several senior dignitaries also participated and contributed towards this technical discussion.

The deliberations concluded that, the Quality Assurance model being followed in Indian industries engaged in realising the space systems has to be suitably tuned by ISRO as applicable to our environment, taking necessary feedback from their overseas counterpart. It is also important that all the stakeholders involved, bring in innovation in their tasks, for making the entire Quality Assurance system as an efficient, effective and faster mechanism.