[DOE LETTERHEAD]
June 29,
2005
The Honorable A. J. Eggenberger
Acting Chairman
Defense Nuclear Facilities
Safety Board
625 Indiana Avenue, NW, Suite
700
Washington, DC 20004-2941
Dear Mr. Eggenberger:
The purpose of this letter is to
inform you that the Office of Environment, Safety and Health’s (EH)
responsibility for Commitments 4.3.2 and 4.4.1 in the Department of Energy’s
Software Quality Assurance (SQA) implementation plan of March 13, 2003, has
been completed. This plan was in
response to Board Recommendation 2002-1, Quality Assurance for Safety Software at Department of
Energy Defense Nuclear Facilities.
The Department committed to
issuing the required SQA directives and to incorporate a Corporate QA function
within EH. DOE O 414.1C, Quality Assurance, was revised to include the
appropriate EH responsibilities and to require the use of NQA-1-2000, Quality Assurance
Requirements for Nuclear Facility Applications, or other national or
international consensus standards that provide an equivalent level of quality
assurance requirements, to address the quality of safety software. To supplement the Order, DOE G 414.1-2, Quality Assurance
Management System for use with 10 CFR 830.120 and DOE O 414.I, was updated and a new guidance
document, DOE G 414.1-4, Safety
Software Guide for use with I0 CFR 830 Subpart A, Quality Assurance
Requirements, and DOE O 414.IC, Quality Assurance, was developed. All three directives were formally issued on
June 17, 2005.
If you have any questions,
please call me at (301) 903-8008 or Mr. Robert Loesch, Acting Director for
Quality Assurance Programs, at (301) 903-4443.
Sincerely,
Frank B. Russo
Deputy Assistant Secretary
Office of Corporate Performance
Assessment
cc:
Mark
B. Whitaker,
DR-1
Robert M. Loesch, EH-31