JW,
The obvious thing would of course be to first find out what the organisation and the Ops manger expects from you and how this function is described in the OM. As it seems there has not been much help to find there, you may be in the lucky? position that you could develop your own system!
My view is that the lack of clarity and comprehension some people experience when Quality is brought up, is caused mostly by confusion with respect to the proper terminology. And many people’s previous experience with “Quality”, may have been with something rather big and woolly. The buzz words are sometimes used by those who may at best only know approximately what the words mean. And to be honest, there is really no universal standard or even understanding of this terminology, although most of the processes they intend to describe, in my experience are found almost everywhere.
With respect to terminology, some FW operators, and even Flight Safety Foundation, seem to have adapted the term Flight Operational Quality Assurance (FOQA) for what others, including ICAO, would call Flight Data Analysis (FDA), and some even HOMP.
Although there may not be an intention in your company to implement a full ISO 9000-2000 Quality Management System, I agree that ISO is very useful as a basis, as the standard contains clear definitions of its terms and the relationship between the them.
ISO 9000-2000 defines Quality Assurance as: “part of quality management focused on providing confidence that quality requirements will be fulfilled”
Briefly, my view is that Quality Assurance involves applying Deming’s continuous improvement loop “Plan – Do – Check – Act” to Flight Operations. Quality Asurance thus simply means that you ensure that operations are performed by well trained crews (Do), according to adequate procedures (Plan), and that operations are monitored for deviations and potential hazards (Check). The results from monitoring are analysed to detect areas in need of improvement (still Checking) and necessary improvements are developed and implemented (Act). Some would call this an Accident Prevention and/or Flight Safety Programme; others might use the term Safety Management System.
Some authorities have developed practical guidelines for Accident Prevention and Flight Safety Programmes or Safety Management Systems. I know of publications from CASA, TC, UK CAA. Some of these are especially suited to smaller operators.
For a start, have a look on the web-sites of those authorities, and you should find some useful information.