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U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Quality surveillance at nuclear power plants

Conference · · Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (USA)
OSTI ID:6180200

Quality surveillance (QS) of nuclear power plants has been occurring for a number of years and is growing in importance as a management tool for assuring that power plants are operated and maintained safely. Quality surveillance can be identified by many terms, such as monitoring, assessment, technical audits, and others. The name given to the function is not important. Quality surveillance at nuclear power plants developed out of a need. Historically, audits were performed to verify compliance to quality program requirements. Verification of day-to-day implementation of activities was not being performed. This left a void in verification activities since inspections were mainly directed at hardware verification. Quality surveillance, therefore, was born out of a need to fill this void in verification. This paper discusses quality surveillance definition; objectives of QS, activities considered for QS, personnel performing QS. As in any human endeavor, people and the attitudes of those people make a program succeed or fail. In the case of QS this is even more critical because of the overview and exposure given to the nuclear industry. Properly trained and experienced personnel performing QS combined with the right attitude contribute to the successful performance of a QS. This is only one side of the success equation, however; acceptance of and actions taken by plant management establish the total success of a QS program.

OSTI ID:
6180200
Report Number(s):
CONF-900608--
Journal Information:
Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (USA), Journal Name: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (USA) Vol. 61; ISSN TANSA; ISSN 0003-018X
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English