Current quality criteria

The Safety Series 50-C/SG-Q 'Quality Assurance for Safety in Nuclear Power Plants and other Nuclear Installations' published by the IAEA in 1996, contains the Code and 14 Safety Guides. It is more addressed to operating organizations than to regulatory authorities. Priority is assigned to programme implementation and to work effectiveness. Emphasis is putted on doing work correctly from the very beginning (right first time attitude), and not on finding and correcting errors instead of preventing them. The essential aspects for assuring quality (that is, for achieving and maintaining an acceptable level of safety) cover the ten basic requirements established by the Code: Management (QA programme, training and qualification, non-conformance control and corrective actions, document control and records); Performance (work, design, procurement, inspection and testing for acceptance); and Assessment (management self-assessment, independent assessment). These requirements are applicable, on a graded approach basis, to the overall QA programme of the operating organization and its partial programmes during design, construction, commissioning, operation and decommissioning stages. The requirements can be also applied, with due adaptations, to other nuclear installations. The research and development activities related to such stages are comprised under the quality 'umbrella' as well. Therefore the scope of the traditional quality assurance is expanded and consolidated as a management tool more oriented to user. Responsibilities for achieving quality objectives are assigned to all involved individuals and organizations at all levels: management, working groups and assessment teams. Managers' is important but individual responsibilities are unavoidable. For the Argentine Nuclear Regulatory Authority, performance-based quality assurance was not a novelty. In line with the regulatory philosophy (which is essentially based on performance) the regulatory standard AR 3.6.1 (Rev.1) 'Quality System', issued in 1997, is coherent with the Code 50-C-Q. (author)