Quality Assurance
Economic efficiency and success cannot be reached unless modern methods of management are applied. High quality of production and emphasis on environment and employee health protection determine future position of the company on the market and among its competitors.
One of the basic parts of our company’s strategy is continuous development and improvement of the established certified Integrated Management System (IMS) and the certified system of quality assurance pursuant to ASME Section III. IMS integrates the requirements of standard ČSN ISO 9001:2000 (QMS), ČSN ISO 14001:2005 (EMS) and ČSN OHSAS 18001:2007.
Customer qualifications, which acknowledge the quality of our company’s supplies, are of essential importance. On account of these, ŠKODA JS has been put on the list of selected suppliers for significant customers, which is one of the conditions for mutual cooperation. The company is a qualified supplier for ČEZ, a. s. (CR), Slovenské elektrárne (SR), NAEK „Energoatom“ (Ukraine), EdF (France), Paks NPP (Hungary), OKG - Oskarshamn NPP (Sweden), Westinghouse Electric (USA), AREVA (France), GNS (Germany) and for quite a number of other customers.
The activities of the company include design activities of nuclear power plant logical units, complex project management and related sub-supplier chain management, design and construction of nuclear equipment, its manufacture and complex testing, commissioning of technological sub-systems of nuclear power plants and complex service support, including joint management of planned outages at all six units in the Czech Republic (see Products and Services) . IMS has been drawn in such a way that it covers a large spectrum of the above activities.
Consistent product quality assurance within all the above mention activities is essential for future long-term reliable operation of nuclear power plants. As the company focuses on supplies for nuclear power plants on Western as well as Eastern European markets, upon design and construction of the products, the company has to cope with the requirements of different standards, regulations and also various customer requirements.
First of all, the company has to respect the national legislation, which regulates the conditions for design, manufacture, installation and commissioning of nuclear equipment in the Czech Republic. This mainly concerns so-called Atomic Act No. 18/1997 Coll. and related regulations of the State Office for Nuclear Safety, especially regulation No. 132/2008 Coll. „on Quality System upon Implementation and Provision of Activities Related to Nuclear Power Utilization and Radiation Activities and on Classified Equipment Quality Assurance with respect to their Classification into Safety Classes“ and regulation No. 309/2005 Coll. „on Assurance of Classified Equipment Technical Safety“.
In relation to the Atomic Act, there is a number of other regulations that the company must comply with, e.g. upon training of employees entering ionizing radiation environment, etc. (e.g. SUJB regulation No. 307/2002 Coll. "Regulation of the State Office for Nuclear Safety on Radiation Protection").
As regards foreign supplies, mainly the following foreign national design and manufacture codes and standards, designated for design, manufacture and quality assurance upon production of nuclear reactors, are applied: Russian regulations PNAEG, German guidelines KTA, French code RCC-M, Finnish guidelines YVEL, Hungarian regulations ABOS and Slovak BNS. At the same time, the company is certified pursuant to EN ISO 3834-2 (welding), DIN 18800-7 (large certificate of welding qualification), AD 2000-Merkblatt HP0 (pressure vessels), CEFRI (dosimetric control at French nuclear power plants). The company disposes of approximately 10 other important certificates.
There are three laboratories accredited pursuant to ČSN EN ISO/IEC 17025:2005 – Defectoscopy Testing Laboratory, In-service Inspections Testing Laboratory and Material Laboratory, which form part of the entire IMS system, which successfully operate within the company.
Assessment of supplier quality by means of continuous evaluation of every single supply of material as well as quality audits, form an integral part of assurance of quality of supplies within the company.
