Certification: The Highest Level of Assurance

Certification is a formal statement of conformance to known standards. Its credibility rests on two pillars:

1. The certifying agency’s publicly acknowledged technical competence, and
2. The quality of the standards used to evaluate the industry or system.

The value of certification versus “commentary” is its usefulness to the public, customers, and stakeholders.

ISC certification of a system requires an assessment using standards for design that identify features that make the system inherently safe and secure. Insights gained from an assessment, even without certification, can be expected to result in significantly enhanced safety and security, with associated reductions in economic and other societal costs.

The ISC may serve as an adjunct to a government agency or as a recognized third party certifier. As an independent certifier, the ISC realizes its greatest potential. Certification enables expanded international markets for products and services. Most importantly, the certification process will stimulate industries and governments to higher surety levels, increasing public, customer, and stakeholder confidence.

Unparalleled Experience The ISC, comprising US and Russian national laboratories, has the requisite scientific and engineering talents, test facilities, and combined historical experience in dealing with high consequence systems to credibly undertake the certification role. Potential Customers Customers for High Consequence Surety Certification include: Highly energetic systems Critical infrastructures (power, transportation, communications) Oil and gas transportation Commercial aviation Nuclear processing And many more

First Strategic Planning Meeting at VNIIA in Moscow, Russia

The first strategic planning meeting of the ISC took place at the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Automatics (VNIIA) in Moscow, Russia, March 30 to April 2, 1998. The objective of the meeting was to generate buy-in for the concept of the ISC and to draft a joint business plan. A vision and a mission, primary and secondary products, and a project portfolio for the ISC were developed. At the meeting, presentations were made by Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), the Ministry of Atomic Energy of the Russian Federation (MINATOM), Underwriters Laboratories (UL), and the All-Russian Research Institute of Experimental Physics (VNIIEF). The panel meeting was attended by individuals from these four organizations.

Participants in the first strategic planning meeting, Moscow, April 1998.

The panelists used the Vital Issues process to evaluate a proposed set of primary and secondary products for the ISC. They championed the products using the point-counterpoint process. The following set of criteria were used:

1. Importance of the product to the viability of the Center.
2. Match of the skill sets needed to provide this product to the skill sets available within the ISC partner institutions.
3. Who are the potential paying customers and will they pay for this product?
4. Who are the ISC’s competitors in providing this product?
5. Other collaborators to be included on the team.

The products were also evaluated using the following three metacriteria, necessary (is the product necessary for fulfilling the goals of the ISC), operational (can the ISC do it effectively), and sufficient (is anything missing).

A project portfolio for the primary and secondary products was also developed. The primary product line items in the portfolio were ranked using pairwise comparisons. The three top-ranking items are to be analyzed further.

Primary Product

• Surety assessments and certification

Secondary Products

• Standards and processes for risk assessments and certification
• Safety and security testing
• Accident and incident modeling
• Reliability analysis/quality assurance
• Databases
• Emergency response planning
• Support services
  • Support of government agencies in formulating appropriate regulations
  • Other surety issues including personnel safety, reliability, and human factors
  • Education, training, and advertisement

ISC Project Portfolio

Primary Product Line - Example Projects:

• Zinc Isotope Production Facility Surety Assessment
• Risk assessment of a fusion nuclear power facility in 2100
• Risk assessment of the transportation of hazardous materials

Secondary Product Line - Example Projects:

• Development of probabilistic-based safety requirements for the International Atomic Energy Agency
• Conversion of the existing surety database so that it is web-accessible
• Development of a radiation safety handbook for emergency response
• Development of a risk analysis handbook for high consequence systems
• Probabilistic characterization of the strength of hazardous materials shipping casks
• Assessment of pipeline reliability and quality assurance

For more information on ISC programs, contact:

	Dr. Olga S. Vorontsova Deputy Director of Center for International Relations, VNIIEF (83130) 1-41-05 fax (83130) 5-38-08 osv@dc.vniief.ru
	Richard E. Smith Manager of International Surety Projects, Department 12302, Sandia National Laboratories (505) 844-4476 fax (505) 844-9225 resmith@sandia.gov

For more information contact Dr. Dennis Engi, (505) 845-8284.

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