Current Implementation of the Quality Assurance Program at the United States Los Alamos National Laboratory

Abstract

The Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is a one of the largest and diverse science and technological institutions in the world. The size and sophistication of LANL’s facilities and workforce present a unique challenge to develop and implement a Quality Assurance (QA) program that meets LANL’s needs. LANL has updated its QA Program to a targeted, requirements-based approach, and broadened its Quality Assurance technical expertise into essential technical areas. The expanded areas of expertise include engineering, project management, nuclear facility operations, and weapons design and fabrication. This approach is achieving success as evidenced on an institutional level by LANL’s receipt of various national, international and local awards for its products and services. Success is also realized on the QA Program level with sufficient recognition of the importance of the QA Program by the LANL workforce. However, QA program challenges remain in areas of expanding the importance of QA; streamlining the grading process and ensuring the program is commensurate with risk and customer expectations; maintaining sufficient authority and freedom from line management for deployed QA personnel while continuing to increase the technical breadth of QA personnel. These are the focus areas to continuously improve the LANL QA Program.