September 12, 2018

Management of Calibration Activities at the Kansas City National Security Campus

One of the primary missions of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is to ensure the safety, reliability, and performance of the Nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile.  NNSA’s Kansas City National Security Campus (KCNSC) management and operating contractor is responsible for manufacturing and procuring nonnuclear stockpile components, including electronic, mechanical, and engineered material components.  To verify the safety and reliability of these components, NNSA facilities are required to establish, document, and maintain a calibration program that will provide accurate and repeatable data that are traceable to national standards.  Department of Energy Order 414.1D, Quality Assurance, requires that equipment used for inspections, tests, monitoring, or data collection shall be calibrated and that calibration processes should use established acceptance and performance criteria.  Given the Department’s commitment to certify that nuclear weapons meet designated military operational specifications, we initiated this inspection to determine if KCNSC is effectively managing its calibration program.

 Our review of calibration procedures at KCNSC did not find any significant issues with the management of the calibration program.  In particular, we found that KCNSC had a process for calibrating Measuring and Test Equipment and observed several calibration activities where KCNSC appeared to follow the process to ensure Measuring and Test Equipment was calibrated, as necessary. 

 Although we found that the program was effectively managed overall, we identified two opportunities where the program could be enhanced.  Therefore, we provided two suggestions to management that we believe could potentially decrease the risk of non-conforming products being accepted.

Topic: Management & Administration