Why Quality Assurance?
The product of the Engineering Design Activities (EDA) is intended for use by all the Parties, individually or jointly, and will form the basis for decisions on further steps in fusion. The Parties have a vested interest in the quality of the work produced and, therefore, have an incentive to put a Quality Assurance (QA) system in place. This QA system should assure that each Party can use the results generated by other parties within their own system.
This QA system is documented in the ITER QA Manual. The QA Manual is a compilation of QA documents (list). The overall structure of the QA documentation is shown below.
The ITER QA Manual is the result of a cooperative effort involving the JCT and Home Teams' QA experts.
The ITER QA Program
The ITER QA Program establishes the basis for the development and implementation of QA across the project. The QA Program is approved by the Home Team Leaders and by the Director.
The QA Plans
The requirements of the ITER QA Program are implemented by means of separate QA Plans prepared and maintained by the JCT and each Home Team:
Each QA Plan establishes the framework for the provision of QA to the activities performed by the relevant participating organization.
Research & Development
Research & Development activities that are critical to the design of ITER are performed within Large R&D Projects identified by ITER Management.
The QA to be employed to ensure the satisfactory completion of Large R&D Projects is described in:
and further developed into guidelines: