OREANDA-NEWS. On April 03-06, 2007 the international “Bureau Veritas Certification Rus” checked the compliance of the quality management system of Smolensk NPP with ISO 9001-2000. SNPP has become the first Rosenergoatom NPP to get international quality certificate, reported the press-centre of  Smolensk NPP. The key goals of the plant’s quality management policy are ensuring nuclear and radiation safety in compliance with the federal standards, preventing above-zero INES incidents, complying with operation and repair schedules, timely modernizing equipment, constantly improving the performance of the personnel and the safety services.

In 2006 the plant carried out 15 internal audits. All detected deficiencies have been removed. Internal audits are an effective way to know if a facility complies with ISO 9001-2000. The head of the audit group Alexander Nasonov says that at SNPP they have detected no single deviation from the international standard. The strongest points of the plant are high competence and responsibility of the personnel and the management and the effective planning and monitoring of the personnel training process. The findings of the audit group will be submitted to the Central Office of the Bureau Veritas Certification (London, the UK), where the plant’s certificate will be given a number. The certificate has been given for three years and the plant will have to justify it. For this purpose, the local management is going to organize regular quality management inspections.