[DOE LETTERHEAD]

 

February 28, 2005

 

The Honorable John T. Conway

Chairman

Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board

625 Indiana Avenue, NW Suite 700

Washington, D.C. 20004-2941

 

Dear Mr. Chairman:

 

Commitment 4.3.2.1 in the Department’s Implementation Plan for Software Quality Assurance (SQA) in response to Board Recommendation 2002-1 requires the Department to establish a schedule to develop, revise, approve, and issue software quality assurance directives.  In my letter to you on October 31, 2003, I provided a copy of that schedule.

 

Revised DOE O 414.1C, Quality Assurance was scheduled to be issued within the directives system by December 31, 2004.  While the Department has made significant progress in revising this Order and also in developing new DOE G 414.1-4, Safety Software Guide for use with 10 CFR 830 Subpart A, Quality Assurance Requirements, and DOE O 414.1C, Quality Assurance, these directives will not be issued on the planned schedule.  This is due primarily to the additional time needed to resolve comments and reach agreement with all Program Secretarial Offices.  A decision on the open non-concurrence relating to NQA-1-2000 is expected soon and will allow us to issue the Quality Assurance Order revision and the new supporting SQA Guide by April 2005.  Issuance of these two directives will complete plan Commitment 4.3.2.1.

 

Because of this delay, the attached list has been revised to show the new schedule for revising other directives to correctly reference the revised Order and new SQA Guide.  These are minor changes being made to keep the directives system internally consistent; these minor changes do not constitute substantive direction related to SQA.  The majority of these minor changes will involve reference changes using the page change process.  We will continue to actively involve the Board staff in the directive revision process.  Questions concerning this commitment may be directed to me at (301) 903-8008 or Richard H. Lagdon at (301) 903-4218.

 

Sincerely,

 

Frank B. Russo

Deputy Assistant Secretary

Office of Corporate Performance Assessment

 

Attachment

 

cc:

John S. Shaw, EH-1

C. Russell Shearer, EH-1

Mark B. Whitaker, DR-1

Richard H. Lagdon, EH-31

Brenda C. Coblentz, IM-21