Decision-Directed Materials Accounting Procedures: An Overview*

With materials balances taken at intervals such as six months or a year, the methods for treating materials balance data and the use of the results by safeguards decision-makers are relatively straightforward. The increasing emphasis on timely materials accounting in which balances may be drawn, say, on a daily or weekly basis, raises anew questions in these two areas: (1) What is the most effective means of extracting the maximum amount of information from the materials accounting data? (2) How should safeguards decision-makers use the results, and what, if any, impact does the decision process have on the analysis techniques?