[DOE LETTERHEAD]

 

National Nuclear Security Administration

 

November 21, 2005

 

The Honorable A. J. Eggenberger

Chairman

Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board

625 Indiana Avenue, N.W., Suite 700

Washington, D.C. 20004-2901

 

Dear Mr. Chairman:

 

The purpose of this letter is to provide you with our status on Commitment 4.3.3 of the Implementation Plan for Board Recommendation 2002-1, Quality Assurance for Safety Software at Department of Energy Defense Nuclear Facilities.  Commitment 4.3.3 required the National Nuclear Security Administration Headquarters and Site Offices to review software quality assurance (SQA) directives and determine the actions necessary to implement the requirements.  This action was originally planned to be completed in September 2005.

 

We have completed our review of the SQA requirements contained in the Department of Energy (DOE) Order 414.1C, Quality Assurance (QA), and directed our Site Offices to update their QA Programs and to require their management and operating contractors to provide, within 90 days, plans and schedules for implementing DOE Order 414.1C. 

We expect responses from all Site Offices except Los Alamos Site Office by the end of December 2005.  We expect to provide the site office responses including implementation plans by January 31, 2006.  This submission will also include a path forward for the Los Alamos National Laboratory implementation plan.

 

Should you have any questions, please contact me or have your staff contact Rabi Singh at (301) 903-5864.

 

Sincerely,

 

Thomas P. D’Agostino

Acting Deputy Administrator

  for Defense Programs

 

cc:

M. Whitaker, DR-1

J. Shaw, EH-1

J. Paul, NA-2