Nuclear Manufacturing
Keep the records 10 CFR 50 Appendix B and NQA-1 ask for as the by-product of running the job, not as a second set of binders.
Nuclear work is the most document-heavy manufacturing there is. A safety-related item ships with a record set that has to survive decades of audits: the heat lot and its certified material test report, the welding procedure and the qualified welder who ran it, every inspection result, every nonconformance and its disposition, and the signatures that released it. WorkCell keeps that record as the transaction trail of the job rather than a parallel binder. Receiving captures lots and certifications, operators record inspection results at the operation, revisions of bills of material and routings supersede instead of overwrite, and finite capacity scheduling plans long-lead forgings against real machine time. When an auditor asks what became of a suspect lot, the answer is a query.
Suppliers of safety-related and commercial grade items to utilities, EPC contractors, DOE sites, and SMR developers, plus fabricators and machine shops working under NQA-1 flow-downs from a licensee's program.
| Standard | What It Requires |
|---|---|
| ASME NQA-1 | The quality program most nuclear buyers specify, organized around eighteen requirements covering design control, procurement, item identification and control, inspection, test control, nonconforming items, corrective action, records, and audits. |
| ASME BPVC | Section III governs nuclear components and Section IX governs welding and brazing qualification, so procedure specifications, qualification records, and material test reports are part of the deliverable. |
| ISO 9001 | The general quality management baseline many nuclear suppliers hold alongside NQA-1; structurally similar, but less prescriptive about the item itself. |
| NIST 800-171 | Naval nuclear and DOE work flows down protection of controlled unclassified information across 110 security requirements covering access control, audit, and media protection. |
Material is received against a lot that carries its certified material test report. Every issue to a job keeps the link, so a delivered item resolves backward to the heat it came from, the operators who ran each operation, the inspections recorded against it, and the drawing and routing revision in effect at the time. A suspect-lot question that used to mean pulling travelers out of a cabinet becomes a lookup.
Mill certs stored against the receiving lot so they follow the material into every job it feeds, instead of being re-chased from the distributor months later.
Critical characteristics recorded as inspection results against the receipt and the job, so the verification that accepted a commercial item for safety-related use sits with the item rather than in a separate file.
The procedure specification, the qualification record behind it, and the qualified welder are attached to the operation that used them, with their expiry visible before the job is scheduled.
Severity-classified nonconformances with disposition and containment, and the 8-D corrective action that closed them, linked to the job and the lot they came from.
A one-off valve body is a week of machining and a month of documentation. Certs, travelers, NDE reports, and sign-offs are assembled by hand at the end from four systems and a filing cabinet, and the shop eats the hours because it quoted the metal, not the paperwork.
Critical characteristics are identified in an engineering document, verified by a receiving inspector on a form, and recorded nowhere that connects to the item. When the next audit samples that dedication, nobody can show which receipt it applied to or which job consumed it.
A welder's qualification lapses, a gauge drifts past its calibration date, a procedure gets revised. The job runs anyway because the schedule did not know, and the finding lands months later with every part made in that window inside the scope.
A spreadsheet plan assumes the forging lands on the promised date and the boring mill is free when the job reaches it. Neither holds. Without finite capacity scheduling, one slipped heat pushes a delivery nobody notices until the customer's outage window is at risk.
Lot traceability from receipt to delivered item
Receiving records the lot and its certification, issues to a job preserve the link, and completions assign serials. The genealogy is produced by the transactions themselves, so nobody maintains a parallel log to keep nuclear traceability intact.
Inspection, nonconformance, and corrective action in one loop
Inspection templates and AQL sampling plans drive what gets checked. A failure raises a severity-classified nonconformance with a disposition, and a systemic one escalates into an 8-D corrective action, with the whole chain attached to the job it came from.
Versioned BOMs and routings with effective dating
Bills of material and routings carry a revision and an effective date. A job built two years ago still shows the structure it was actually built to, because changes supersede rather than overwrite, which is what design and configuration control requires.
Receiving inspection that captures dedication evidence
Critical characteristics are recorded as inspection results on the receipt, not on a form filed elsewhere. The verification stays joined to the lot, so the dedication and the item it accepted are one record an auditor can sample.
Finite capacity scheduling against real constraints
The scheduler plans against actual machine and labor capacity rather than infinite capacity, and proposal runs let a planner test a sequence before committing it. When a forging slips, you see which deliveries move before you promise anything.
Shop floor terminals that capture the record once
Operators clock on to an operation, record quantities and scrap, and enter inspection results at the machine. The traceability record and the job cost come from the same entry, so the floor is not doing the paperwork twice.
Inspection templates, severity-classified nonconformances, and 8-D corrective action tied to the job.
InventoryLot and serial traceability with certifications held against the receiving lot and QC hold states.
EngineeringVersioned bills of material and routings carrying the revision an item was actually built to.
ProductionFinite capacity scheduling and operator terminals that record results at the operation.
Quoting, engineering, purchasing, inventory, scheduling, shop floor, and job costing on one database.
QMSInspections, nonconformances, and corrective action held against the job and lot that produced them.
MESOperator terminals capturing actuals, inspection results, and status at each operation.
APSFinite capacity scheduling for one-off, long-lead nuclear work.
What the standard asks for and which records WorkCell keeps against it.
Power Generation EquipmentPressure vessels, boilers, and turbine components under ASME code certification.
Aerospace & DefenseComparable traceability depth under AS9100 and prime contractor flow-downs.
Fabrication ShopsWeld, plate, and structural shops running documented, low-volume work.
What is the difference between NQA-1 and ISO 9001?
NQA-1 is prescriptive about the item and its safety function; ISO 9001 is outcome-based and customer-centric. The structures look similar, but NQA-1 goes further on design control, procurement, item identification, and records, and it is the route suppliers use to satisfy 10 CFR 50 Appendix B.
Can software make us NQA-1 certified?
No, and nothing can. There is no NQA-1 certificate to buy. You build a program, run it on real work long enough to generate objective evidence, then defend it in a customer audit, a NUPIC joint audit, or a third-party survey. WorkCell holds the evidence; the program is yours.
Does WorkCell support 10 CFR 50 Appendix B?
WorkCell keeps records several of its criteria ask for: control of purchased material through receiving inspection, identification and control of items by lot and serial, inspection and test results, nonconforming item disposition, corrective action, and retrievable quality records. Design control, audits, and the program itself stay your responsibility.
How do we document commercial grade dedication of a commercial item?
Record the critical characteristics as inspection results against the receiving lot. The verification then travels with the material into every job that consumes it, so an auditor sampling a dedication sees the receipt, the characteristics checked, who checked them, and the items it released.
Can we trace a delivered part back to its heat lot and material test report?
Yes. Receiving captures the lot and its certified material test report, issues to a job keep the link, and completions assign serials. A serial resolves backward through every operation, operator, and inspection to the heat it came from, without a separate traceability log.
We are a small shop taking on one-off nuclear parts. Is this overkill?
One-off nuclear work is exactly the hard case: tiny quantities, enormous record sets, and buyers who struggle to find shops willing to do it. WorkCell is built for discrete manufacturers from roughly ten to a thousand employees, where the documentation load, not the volume, is the constraint.
See it run on your parts.
Tell us how your record package gets built today and we will tell you straight whether WorkCell is a fit.