Application of military sampling standards to 1E qualification of commercial-grade parts

Many original equipment manufacturer parts suppliers have chosen to drop their nuclear quality assurance (QA) program since the big contracts and large volumes are no longer available to justify the expense. Therefore, the nuclear industry must look to alternative methods of maintaining excellence in parts reliability and quality. The industry must be able to select the best performing equipment instead of too often being restricted to the only remaining approved vendor. Worse yet, the utility may no longer have an approved vendor for some types of parts. Wyle Labs. is applying long-proven military sampling and inspection techniques to commercial-grade parts in order to achieve the QA levels necessary for the nuclear industry. They discussed QA inspection programs are then combined with comprehensive qualification testing programs. Wyle provides directly traceable test certifications for all parts supplied and assumes 10CFR50 Appendix B and 10CFR21 responsibilities. Qualified parts from preferred manufacturers are supplied by combining these military quality control techniques with Wyle's analysis and test capabilities