The Department of Energy Office of Enforcement is concerned that agency oversight was needed to identify that Hanford Site contractor Mission Support Alliance (MSA) had not adequately developed and implemented a software quality assurance program that met federal requirements.
The office on Nov. 2 sent an enforcement letter to the support services provider for the Washington state facility.
The issue was discovered in a May 2017 audit by the two DOE offices at Hanford: the Richland Operations Office and Office of River Protection. Mission Support Alliance took corrective actions, but the Office of Enforcement said they might be insufficient to maintain the effectiveness of the software quality assurance program over the long term and did not ensure the contractor would identify quality assurance issues without having to rely on DOE oversight.
“The actual nuclear safety consequences of these inadequacies are currently low, but DOE views seriously any programmatic failure that has the potential to impact nuclear safety,” the Office of Enforcement said in the letter.
The Energy Department does not plan to pursue further enforcement activity against MSA, the letter said. But the Office of Enforcement and DOE Office of Environmental Management, which oversees cleanup operations at Hanford. will continue to monitor MSA’s efforts to improve nuclear safety performance, it said.
Software quality assurance is the process of managing software, in this case software used in Hanford-wide applications, through its lifecycle, including purchasing, development, design, maintenance and eventual retirement.
The DOE audit in May 2017 identified significant omissions and inadequacies in procedures, implementation, and training related to MSA’ software quality assurance program. It also found that work that could impact nuclear safety was performed without documented instructions and procedures.
Mission Support Alliance completed its causal analysis three months later, finding it lacked adequate staff with the necessary skills and proficiency for its software quality assurance program. In a prepared statement Thursday, MSA said it has taken a multifaceted approach toward improvement. “We have realigned priorities, updated procedures and implemented additional training for all managers and software owners on our team,” according to the statement. “We are committed to ensuring the effectiveness of our software quality assurance program.”
