Commercial Grade Dedication
The Versatile Measuring Instruments Division of the Amidyne Group performs Commercial Grade Dedication (CGD) services for the North American Nuclear Power Industry. Versatile provides this service to the existing nuclear power plant fleet as well as vendors to the industry.
The company believes in an “open book pricing” policy, where the cost of the materials, the markup and the dedication costs are all disclosed. This strategy has helped our customers understand where the true costs are in the Commercial Grade Dedication process, and help reduce those costs.
The company is also performing process mapping and cycle time studies with its customers to establish strategies to remove unnecessary costs from the overall CGD process and accelerate the delivery of dedicated products.
DEFINITION AND DESCRIPTION:
Commercial Grade Dedication is an acceptance process undertaken to provide reasonable assurance that a CGI (Commercial Grade Item) to be used as a basic (safety-related) component will perform its intended safety function.
Dedication is performed following guidelines established by the Electrical Power Research Institute (EPRI) and ASME NQA-1 requirements. Specifically, EPRI NP-5652 and ASME NQA-1 Subpart 2.14 are applied under our CSA Z299.2 and 10CFR50 Appendix B quality programs.
The process begins with a “Technical Evaluation” and the selection of “Critical Characteristics. Credible failure modes of the item in its operating environment and the effect of these failures on the safety function are considered in the technical evaluation and the selection of critical characteristics.
The critical characteristics are then verified by one or a combination of the four industry accepted methods described in EPRI NP-5652. For the most part, dedication is conducted in accordance with Method 1 of EPRI NP-5652 “Special Tests and Inspections” supplemented by method 2, “Commercial Grade Survey” of suppliers. When sampling is required for “Special Tests and Inspections”, EPRI document “TR-017218 R1, Guideline for Sampling in the Commercial-Grade Item Acceptance Process” is referenced.
Dedication plans are submitted as required to customers for acceptance. On completion of the dedication process, the final CGD report is submitted to the customer as per the purchase order requirements.
Amidyne's Commercial Grade Dedication Processs Chart:
