A Safeguards Approach based on Quality Management Principles

In the industrial sector, the classical approach of quality control of the product itself has long been replaced by an overall quality management system. It is hence of essential importance that the quality of a product be automatically enforced by implementation of the quality management system at all stages including preparatory work, design and production by failure preventing measures. The verification principle of IAEA Safeguards, i.e. materials and inventory checks still exactly complies with the quality control principle considered to be out-of-date and inefficient in terms of quality management. It is, however, possible for safeguards inspections to achieve a comparable confidence level by appropriate design of the operator’s nuclear material accounting and control $ syste s using process qualification methods in comb” ation with an audit regime with less effort and intrusiveness than the classical approach using independent verification. The international standard series 1S0 9000 as well as other comparable standards offer a sufilcient basis. The paper \\ features safeguards measures in accordance with this new appro T using a LEU Fuel Fabrication faci’vm ,e