The product assurance programme of the ASTRI Mini-Array project

The ASTRI Mini-Array is a project of the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) to construct and operate an observatory to study astronomical sources emitting in the TeV spectral band. The ASTRI Mini-Array is under construction and consists of an array of nine innovative Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes located at the Teide Astronomical Observatory, operated by the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, on Mount Teide (~2400 m a.s.l.) in Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain). In the project framework, we have implemented a Product Assurance (PA) programme, which defines the strategy and the organization for the management of the quality control. It defines the applicable quality requirements for design, procurement, AIT, and verification, and the guidelines to manage the acceptance of the deliverable items provided by the external suppliers. In the case of HW items, the PA programme provides requirements regarding the monitoring of manufacturing process and qualification activities, as well as the item identification, inspection and storage. For SW components, we have provided a dedicated Quality Assurance plan, and detailed guidelines to drive the whole software development life cycle. We paid particular attention to the management of non-conformances and requests for deviations/waivers, since these are very critical in the case of external industrial partners. In this work we present the layout and contents of the ASTRI Mini-Array PA programme, describing the organization adopted within ASTRI for its management and reporting some examples of how it has been applied up to now.