April 2, 1998, WSRC letter forwarding a copy of the Conduct of Research and Development Document for the Savannah River Technology Center.

[WESTINGHOUSE SAVANNAH RIVER COMPANY LETTERHEAD]

April 2, 1998

The Honorable John T. Conway
Chairman
Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board
625 Indiana Avenue, N.W.
Suite 700
Washington, D.C. 20004

Dear Mr. Chairman:

Enclosed for your information is a copy of the Conduct of Research and Development Document for the Savannah River Technology Center. This was prepared to address the unique requirements for conducting research and development while embracing the principles of disciplined operations. In the development of this document, we have included a clear and logical methodology for Integrated Safety Management (ISM) within our research and development activities. We consider this document as an aid to our implementation of ISM. In the preparation of this, a cross section of personnel from the Savannah River Technology Center, including researchers, managers as well as personnel from our Operations Divisions, participated. While not totally unique in approach, the merging of our Site Policies and Requirements to the research process is noteworthy. We feel this will serve us well in further improving the safety of our research as well as the safe delivery of technology to all customers we serve now and in the future.

We presently are implementing this across SRTC including both ongoing and future work. We also recognize that it is a living document and have several items under development to be added later this year including:

Expanding our self-assessment process to span all activities and work levels from Safety "at the bench" to the attributes of Research Excellence.
Further strengthening of our technology review process including more independent review.
Incorporation of Lessons Learned from our current implementation and previous technology transfer experiences.

Please contact me if I can be of any further assistance or Dr. Susan Wood, of my staff, at (803) 725-3994.

Sincerely,

A. L. Schwallie

cc:
G. Rudy, DOE-SR, Bldg. 703-A
M. Whitaker, DOE, S-3.1
J.J. Buggy, WSRC, Bldg. 703-A
Dr. Susan Wood, WSRC, Bldg. 773-A