Russian Certification: Facilitating the Process through Modeling and Analysis

The certification of equipment and software for use in Russian nuclear facilities is a complex process; this complexity has posed challenges for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Material Protection, Control, and Accounting (MPC&A) Program. The four principal Russian certification regimes that govern certification for equipment, products, and technologies used in Russian nuclear facilities have produced myriad regulations. These regulations and their diverse requirements for certification of equipment and software pose a daunting management challenge. Enterprise modeling and analysis methodology are tools that can help the analyst understand the organization, people, processes, systems, and technology, and most importantly, the relationship between these elements. An enterprise modeling approach can be used to understand the Russian certification process by organizing the certifying organizations, the criteria for certification, and the MPC&A system’s operating facilities or environments as individual database elements. Relationships between these varied elements are then established to define the required certification process for a given situation. This paper describes work performed for the MPC&A Program to develop a model that organizes these certification elements and requirements in an understandable format. The result is an effective tool that allows personnel engaged in this work to confidently answer the questions “Is it appropriately certified?” and “If not, what has to be done?”