November 2016

Lessons Learned From Reviews of Construction Quality at U.S. Department of Energy Nuclear Facilities

Since 2011, the Office of Enterprise Assessments (EA) and predecessor organizations have performed reviews of construction quality by assessing ongoing and completed construction work to determine whether projects are constructed in accordance with design engineering drawing and specification requirements and industry standards.  This report summarizes and analyzes the results of reviews at five U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear project sites conducted from February 2011 through December 2015.  This report also addresses the results of EA's review of ventilation system procurement activities for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, as well as a review of the DOE Occurrence Reporting and Processing System (ORPS) and the Noncompliance Tracking System (NTS) for nuclear safety occurrences and violations associated with construction quality reported from around the DOE complex.