SIMULIA Quality Assurance

Delivering high quality products and services at an acceptable cost while maintaining strong customer satisfaction and product reputation.

Quality Monitoring Service

We believe our quality assurance procedures are among the best in the industry. Adding the Quality Monitoring Service for the Abaqus Unified FEA product suite is a cost-effective way to leverage our QA work in achieving your own quality assurance objectives.

Introduction

Increasingly, customers find that they are required to select, evaluate and re-evaluate suppliers' quality activities as a desirable or mandatory component of their own quality assurance work or a regulation requirement. To assist customers in meeting this requirement, SIMULIA offers the Quality Monitoring Service. The service has four components:

  • A controlled copy of the SIMULIA Quality Assurance Manual
  • Exclusive ability to sort on "potentially serious errors" and create reports in Dsx. Client Care and Order
  • A copy of the annual internal QA audit
  • The right to conduct the customer's own QA audit

The Quality Monitoring Service is available for the Abaqus suite of products.

QA Manual

Quality Monitoring Service customers receive controlled copies of the Quality Assurance Manual. This document defines the processes used at SIMULIA to ensure quality. It is designed to comply with the ISO 9001:2008 standard and applicable parts of NQA-1, Subpart 2.7, titled “Quality Assurance Requirements for Computer Software”. A "controlled" copy means that customers receive all revisions to the manual. In this way, such customers are informed in detail of the processes used at SIMULIA for quality assurance and are notified of any changes in those processes.

"Potentially Serious Errors"

A defect is potentially serious when one behavior should occur, but the software is providing a wrong result or behavior and this is not obvious to the user. A defect may be classified as Potentially Serious without regard for the frequency at which it may occur. Potentially serious bugs are the most difficult to identify, and may cause an experienced analyst to believe the behavior of Abaqus to be accurate when it may in fact be inaccurate in an engineering sense.

Our Quality Management System is designed to meet the ISO 9001:2008 requirements and to facilitate customer compliance with the ASME NQA-1 requirements. NQA-1 discusses "conditions adverse to quality" under the section on corrective action. NQA-1 is consistent with 10 CFR Appendix B to Part 50 titled “Quality Assurance Criteria for Nuclear Power Plants and Fuel Reprocessing Plants”. Recognizing our customers’ requirements under 10 CFR Part 21 titled “Reporting of Defects and Noncompliances” as applied to commercial grade items, SIMULIA provides customers with timely notification of all known defects to enable prompt identification and reporting. In addition, subscribers to the Quality Monitoring System have the exclusive ability to sort on potentially serious bugs and create customized reports. All defects in the Abaqus Unified FEA product suites are conditions adverse to quality, but potentially serious bugs are clearly the most severe and hence receive special treatment.

Annual QA Audit

An internal audit is conducted annually of the SIMULIA Quality Management System. The purpose of the audit is to ensure continuing compliance of the SIMULIA Quality Management System with the provisions of the ISO 9001:2008 standard. Quality Monitoring Service customers receive a copy of the annual internal audit report.

Right to Audit

Quality Monitoring Service customers have the right to visit SIMULIA headquarters to audit the SIMULIA Quality Management System themselves or to have their own contractors perform such quality audits. SIMULIA covers its own costs for staffing, copying, etc. in cooperating with such audits. The customer is responsible for its auditor's costs.

We ask that reasonable notification of such audit visits be provided and that flexibility be shown in choosing dates so that the appropriate personnel are available to support the auditors.

For Quality Monitoring Service-related question, please email us at simulia.qa-service(at)3ds.com.

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