[en] The status of a programme to develop assay methods for plutonium and uranium for safeguards purposes is presented. The current effort is directed more towards analyses of scrap-type material with an end goal of precise automated methods that also will be applicable to product materials. A guiding philosophy for the analysis of scrap-type materials, characterized by heterogeneity and difficult dissolution, is relatively fast dissolution treatment to carry out 90% or more solubilization of the uranium and plutonium, analysis of the soluble fraction by precise automated methods, and gamma-counting assay of any residue fraction using simple techniques. A Teflon-container metal-shell apparatus provides acid dissolutions of typical fuel-cycle materials at temperatures to 275⁰C and pressures to 340 atm. Gas-solid reactions at elevated temperatures are promising to separate uranium from refractory materials by the formation of volatile uranium compounds. The condensed compounds then are dissolved in acid for subsequent analysis. An automated spectrophotometer has been placed in operation for the determination of uranium and plutonium. The measurement range is 1 to 14 mg of either element with a relative standard deviation of 0.5% over most of the range. The throughput rate is 5 min per sample. A second-generation automated instrument, which will use a precise and specific electro analytical method as its operational basis, is being developed for the determination of plutonium. (author)