Wednesday, February 24, 2010
$8.3 Billion Approved to Build 2 New Reactors
Feb. 17, 2010, President Obama announced the guarantee of an $8.3 Billion loan for the building of two new plants and the Vogtle site near Augusta, Georgia. If you were still unsure if you should get into the nuclear industry, this should tell you that there is no better time than now to get into this industry.
This is just the beginning, as VC Summer is just behind Vogtle with getting their Unit numbers 3 & 4 built. More and more stories like this will be seen in the years to come.
Global Quality Assurance (GQA) personnel are ready to prepare your company for this and the upcoming opportunities. We are considered experts in the supply of Nuclear (NQA-1 and 10CFR50 App. B) program development, commercial grade item (CGI) edication, internal audit services, supplier audits and training. GQA is here to help you in this nuclear renaissance.
Monday, February 08, 2010
Speaking at PowerGen
In December 2009 the GQA VP of Quality , Deborah Borland, was invited and had the pleasure of presenting at the Power-Gen International Conference. The Topic was Vendor 101, NQA-1 Nuclear Program Development. Almost 20,000 people attended the 2009 conference in Las Vegas. A copy of the Vendor 101, NQA-1 Nuclear Program Development Power Point Presentation is available upon request to .
NQA-1-2008 & NQA-1a-2009
At this time, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is currently reviewing the ASME NQA-1-2008 guidelines.
We contacted Mr. Paul Prescott of the NRC to find out what the progress is on the review. According to Mr. Prescott there will be about 2 more months before the revision is published. He suggested we check this site (full link below) towards the end of April. Mr. Prescott also mentioned that the version would be named NQA-1-2008 and the approved addendum will be NQA-1a-2009.
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/reg-guides/
The NRC In Training
In December 2009, GQA was privileged to have four (4) members from the Nuclear Regulatory Committee (NRC) attend our December 7-9, 2009 Nuclear Auditors and Commercial Grade Item (CGI) Dedication training classes. This included an Analyst from the NRC Office of the Inspector General (OIG). The purpose of the NRC personnel attendance was to not only have them trained as auditors, but evaluate the GQA training program. The gentleman from the OIG was present to learn more about the applicable regulations as well as better understand the training that industry auditors and other personnel receive. In addition, the NRC OIG is conducting a scheduled program review of the NRC’s vendor inspection program. During and after the training sessions, several of the attendees stated that the NRC personnel not only participated in the class project sessions actively, but also offered value added information that was beneficial to the class. The feedback regarding our courses from the NRC was positive. The NRC indicated that the class was well organized and provided positive comments on the type of presentations that were offered to the students. The NRC commented the class room assignments for participating in mock audits offered the individuals the opportunity to realize what would be expected of them when performing audits of quality related activities. Upon completion of the training sessions, the NRC OIG Analyst, the GQA Trainer and the GQA Quality Manager met to discuss various issues associated with Counterfeit/Fraudulent items; the GQA nuclear training class and how the NRC information could become more available to the vendors.
The Counterfeit/Fraudulent items discussion was mainly directed toward the generation of the new nuclear plant construction. It was felt that NRC website contains an abundance of information but it could be a little overwhelming to the individual searching for the information.
During the discussion, the GQA Trainer and GQA Quality Manager addressed the current situation and the effort required to obtain what is actually needed. Several suggestions were offered. One suggestion offered was that the NRC Inspection Branch could establish a vendor ICON within the NRC website that could contain information for a vendor that could be accessed and printed out. The website ICON could also have an area that will allow the vendor to post a question for the NRC to respond back by placing the information as an answer to the question.
Another suggestion was that maybe the NRC could contact NUPIC and offer a proposal to permit a symposium on vendor related topics at the June 2010 NUPIC meeting. The NRC OIG Analyst stated that he had contacted the NUPIC Chairman about the possibility of such a presentation. The GQA Trainer offered his services of suggesting to the NUPIC Vendor Interface Committee Chairman to hopefully include this as part of June 2010 meeting agenda.
The discussions held between the NRC personnel, the GQA Trainer, and the GQA Quality Manager were informative and developed a positive and mutually rewarding relationship between the NRC and GQA representatives.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
State of the Union Address & Nuclear Power
Last night, in the State of the Union Address, President Obama, stressed the importance of clean energy as the country moves forward. One of those forms of clean energy mentioned was nuclear energy.
“But to create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. That means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country,” stated the President.
While this was a small part of the State of the Union Address, it says a lot for those of us working within the nuclear industry – and those that are looking to break into supplying the nuclear industry. With the president’s support we can be assured projects will continue to move forward within the industry, while other pending projects continue forward. There has never been a better time to work in the nuclear industry.
Friday, January 22, 2010
NEI Outreach & Date for our Free* Workshop
The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) has set the location and dates of their next Nuclear Manufacturing Outreach Workshop. This workshop will be held March 25-26 at the Irvine Marriott in Irvine, California. The workshop will give you an excellent opportunity to meet with engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) companies. Please visit the NEI webpage to find out more. Global Quality Assurance personnel will be attending the workshop, and we hope to see you there!
We have also set up the date for our Free* Nuclear Quality Program Development Workshop for April 16th. This will be just after our training classes for your convenience. I will be sending out more information soon, or look for us at the NEI Outreach Workshop; we will be happy to talk to you about it.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Women’s Business Enterprise Council
GQA is very excited to announce our certification with the Women’s Business Enterprise Council (WBENC). This was not just a matter of filling out a form. Since February we have completed an extensive application and were interviewed by a WBENC representative to verify GQA is actively managed by women. This certification carries more weight with supplier diversity than state certification because of their rigorous application process.
Meet up with GQA at:
NEI Manufacturing Outreach
October 8, 2009
WBDC Conference
October 15-16, 2009
ETEBA Conference
November 2-4, 2009
NIAC Meeting
November 5-6, 2009
PowerGen
December 7-10, 2009
Global Quality Assurance (GQA) is Improving all the Time
The GQA team is always looking to improve our processes to better serve you. In the last quarter we finished up with two major projects that will help us to help you.
Internally we have developed an electronic system to record our job packages, this new tool allows to quick access information regarding each job performed by our auditors. Using this tool each GQA office associate will be able to quickly access the necessary information to answer questions from our clients and auditors. The production of this tool coincides with our push to become as paperless as possible.
Finally, we have developed a web-based database to automatically monitor our clients Approved Suppliers List (ASL). This database is set to be used with a new service soon to be offered by GQA.
GQA will use this to take the effort of keeping up with an ASL from our client’s hands. However, our clients will also have full access to their lists via this web portal. Clients using this service will see all of their approved suppliers, the dates they were last audited, and when their manual was last checked for updates. Clients will also have access to PDF files of associated audits, Quality Assurance (QA) Manuals and other necessary records for each of their vendors. The necessary audits and QA manual will be updated by GQA staff, leaving our clients free to manage other portions of their business.
GQA = Experience
Our management team has a combined experience of over 70 years in quality in the nuclear industry, 50 years of which were spent in the utilities. The management team also looks for this kind of experience in our lead auditors, many of which have 30+ years experience in the industry.
Along with the years of experience in the industry, our quality management team has also served or chaired on several committees for NUPIC and NIAC, such as: Commercial Grade Committee, Audit Checklist Committee, and Survey Checklist Committee.
It is because of this experience, Debbie Borland, our Vice President of Quality, has been asked to participate in a panel discussion at the upcoming Nuclear Power Conference, which is part of the PowerGen Conference in Las Vegas, NV.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Launching of GlobalQualityAssurance.com
We are please to announce the launch of the new GlobalQualityAssurance.com!
Keep an eye out for updates and weblog postings.