[en] Prior to August, 1980, Westinghouse Hanford Company operated the Hanford Engineering Development Laboratory Quality Program in accordance with the requirements of RDT F 2-2T and RDT F 2-4T and for a short while to ANSI N45.2. Following the issuance of the national consensus standard ANSI/ ASME NQA Standard 1 in August 1979, and its acceptance by DOE, the Laboratory began making changes to meet these requirements in its internal quality program in August 1980. This was followed with the invoking of these requirements on supplier's programs and all procurement activities in March of 1981. This conversion was completed in approximately six months and provided an opportunity for several improvements. The keynote of this standard is flexibility. A major improvement noted was in the flexibility of application. The program can be tailored to meet specific needs. Vendor surveys under NQA-1 have shown positive results in that the organization and structure of the standard is much easier to follow and understand