Nuclear Quality Assurance
NQA-1 and ISO 9001 govern how work is planned, controlled, and documented so quality is built in, not inspected in.
Quality is a system, not an inspection
Nuclear quality assurance — codified in the United States by ASME NQA-1 and complemented by ISO 9001 — is a management system ensuring that requirements are defined, work is controlled, records are kept, and problems are corrected. Its premise is that quality must be built into the process, because you cannot inspect it into a finished component.
Core NQA-1 principles Kronos applies
- Graded application: rigor is scaled to a component's safety and functional importance.
- Design control: changes are reviewed, verified, and traced to requirements.
- Records and traceability: what was built, from what materials, and how it was tested.
- Corrective action: nonconformances are documented and closed, not buried.
Why it matters for readiness
Manufacturing readiness (whether a design can be built repeatably to spec) is meaningless without a quality system to enforce the spec. NQA-1-style discipline is what lets the FOAK breeder function as a genuine first article: deviations are captured so NOAK and BOAK can correct them. Traceability also underpins the safeguards and configuration-management posture described elsewhere.
Kronos treats quality assurance as foundational infrastructure — the umbrella under which pressure-boundary codes, I&C standards, and materials qualification are all applied and recorded.