A problem solving, mutual support group

During the formal and informal discussions at recent meetings of the ITER Council advisory bodies, it became clear that the licensing process and its implications were not fully transparent to all Members. Therefore in January this year, a Safety and Quality Working Group was established in order to provide a forum for discussion for the Domestic Agencies and to channel all the questions that arise within the procurement process, manufacturing, delivery and assembly in regards to safety and quality assurance. I guess we can say that we act as a problem solving, mutual support group helping in both directions by identifying safety and QA issues.

The Working Group is chaired by myself; Jean Philippe Girard acts as secretary. Each Domestic Agency is represented by its Responsible Officer for safety and quality. The ITER Organization itself is represented by Neil Taylor, Head of the Safety Group within the Project Office, Pierre Reynard, Head of Safety Control, Akko Maas, Head of the Project Management Section and finally David Sands, Head of the Quality Assurance Division.

Since its establishment in January, the group has had two meetings. The goal is to have a meeting every two months. The first meeting was completely dedicated to explaining where we are in regards to the licensing process and to provide all the information from the technical exchanges we had with the regulator at that point. In that meeting it was then decided that it would be a good idea to dedicate the next meeting to the understanding of the role of the Agreed Notified Bodies services, something very specific to the French legislation related to the safety of nuclear pressure equipment. Although we still have to agree the agenda, our proposal for the next meeting scheduled for 17 July is to devote it to reviewing the DAs QA program and a status report on Codes and Standards.