[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